invisible man

Guess what, its been FOREVER since I've updated on here - I'm doing my own personal impression of Keyser Soze (The Usual Suspects). And from the looks of it, I'll be continuing that impression for at least another month.

I'm off for another great expedition, this time its Patagonia. I leave on the 30th of December and won't be back until near the end of February. I have a slight plan in mind but nothing too concrete - just me and a friend wandering Argentina and Chile for a month.

So while Expat Nomad is still my moniker and my website, I'm taking a little time off to enjoy the wonders of this continent while I still have the chance. More to come when I return from this adventure, stories and pictures to follow. Until then, Happy New Year and I'll see ya in 2008.

new way to wage war?

I've been a TED junkie recently, watching video after video about many interesting things that are discussed at TED. One that I watched last night really made me think about the role of the military in the world (specifically the US military) and how things could be done differently - especially considering the quagmire that is Iraq. It looks as though someone else has done a good deal of thinking on that idea as well and his ideas are pretty sound in my mind. Give Dr. Thomas Barnett a few minutes of your time and see that people do care about what we've done in Iraq and how that should be changed in the immediate future; its interesting stuff.

what to talk about?

“Great minds talk about ideas, average minds talk about events, and small minds talk about people.” - Eleanor Roosevelt

My friend Shamash sent me a message on Skype the other day, linking me to a video of some amazing technology that is being developed. I'll link to that specific presentation some other time, but it was that video that got me interested in what I am writing about today. Its called TED and iTunes was gracious enough to put up the BMW sponsored video podcast of what happens there.

TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design) bills itself with the tagline "Ideas Worth Sharing" and I couldn't agree more. TED is a conference where people come together to share their ideas with the world and now thanks to the internet, I can watch and absorb the ideas that people are thinking about and sharing. So I thought that I would do what I could to spread the ideas that people at TED are presenting, starting with this one.

reassuring comfort

Its been a while since I've posted on here, mainly just because of what I needed to do after the earthquake(s). While the event didn't affect me much physically, there was some mental issues that I needed to deal with before I got back to the normalcy of my routine life. The time that it took for me to process has gone and I feel like I'm back to a sense of security now that I've had the time to go through it all in my mind. Thanks for your patience.

That sense of security was prevalent today as I made my way home from school this evening. Its Tuesday and while this is usually a day for practice, today was a bit different. We were scheduled to play another local team, our first match of the year, but that match was canceled; they had some bad excuse and I just took it and moved on. So I ran a haphazard practice and then came home afterwards. Leaving school at 7:30 pm means that I'm going to be running into high rush hour and it took me waving down a few cabs before I finally got one that wanted to drive me out to Miraflores for a decent rate.

As I climbed in the back seat of the taxi, I reached over my right shoulder and pulled the safety belt across my body and locked it into place. The cab motored away and I felt relaxed in this cab as we headed off into the fray of rush hour. In a lot of cabs here, seat belts are just starting to be put in to the back seats and there are plenty of vehicles out there without belts. Its not something that I look for when hailing a cab so its kinda luck-of-the-draw as to what you get.

The comfort that this seat belt brought to me made me realize just what little things in life can do for you. It wasn't just the belt itself but the symbol it took for me at that moment in the cab. The idea of the small things meaning the most and comfort being derived from the simple and mundane made me smile - sometimes life just gives you reason to smile, and for bizarre reasons.

So here's to the safety belt that I put on this evening. Cheers for the warm fuzzy!

sense of humor

Well, I can officially say that I'm over the dread of the impending doom of continued earthquakes - at least after what happened today. This is a story that I plan on telling my grandkids.

People all have daily duties to attend to and my daily constitutional for the day was a bit later than normal. Rather than being bright and early, I made my way to the facilities shortly after 3pm local time. As I was sitting there on the throne, Mother Nature threw me a funny - one that you can only laugh about. At 3:11 pm local time, a 5.6 aftershock rumbled away from Chincha Alta (the epicenter for most of the quakes we've been having) and shook the ground quite nicely here in Lima. A nice little side to side saunter, gently massaging my posterior with the plastic seat that I was sitting upon.

Normally, this should be terrifying. Sitting down to do one's duty, pants around the ankles, and having an earthquake strike. But all I could do was laugh. And I mean like gut-busting laughter, laughing so hard you cry - its the only thing that you really can do. I mean, if you take it too seriously, you end up going insane. Instead, just laugh it off and chalk up another wonderful moment in life. Pardon my crass language but I look at it this way - I can literally say that I've experienced having something "shaking the shit" out of me!!! LOL Life is back to normal...

taletell signs

Life has the look of being back to normal here in Lima but as I talk with many people, I am finding that we are all still dealing with the stress of life. Even though we all know that the majority of the energy was released back on Wednesday, the rather frequent and powerful aftershocks still remind us of the two minutes we endured just a few days ago. I will admit, the frequency and magnitude of the aftershocks does worry me slightly, more than 4 days after and we are still having quakes in the 5.0 - 5.8 range. I expected there to be more of a drop-off than this with the aftershocks and I'm sure that the surges of tectonic plates that we are feeling right now are the main reason for the tension that hangs in the air.

As I noted, Lima has the look of being back to normal but every conversation you have is laced with an air of uncertainty and doubt as people still wonder about their safety. A friend of mine from FDR showed the pictures of her apartment (major cracks running through the interior walls) and her hands began to shake as she relived the terror of the moments she felt. It didn't help that about 5 minutes after showing those pictures, we had another aftershock (5.8) shake us again. Her signs are more visible than the rest of us, but if we were poker players right now, our tells would be quite visible.

For me, my tell is the fact that I've been wearing a baseball cap for the last 48 hours and eating like there's no tomorrow. The mood I feel at the moment reminds me of how I felt after 9/11. While the scope of this situation isn't as intense as that day was, I still have that pit in my stomach. For me, I know my reaction to mild/moderate stress is eating food - for others, their reactions are a bit different.

My friends are bonding together as friends do but we are also coming together more in small groups rather than large gatherings. Conversations still focus on the fact that there are aftershocks and the fear that cracks in walls will lead to a structural failure when the next big aftershock hits. People talk about the rescue and repair efforts in Pisco and Ica yet you can hear in their voice that they wonder if soon others will be sent to Lima to rescue us. Stories of rioting and looting in Pisco and Ica worry many here as they know that if Lima does take a hit like those towns did, there would be the same problems on a massive scale. Lima is a city of 8 million and there aren't enough police/military in all of South America that would be able to maintain the peace if a more damaging quake strikes. And those are the stories I hear from cabbies...

I started to feel a little more normal today as I helped a friend put up some bookshelves. These didn't collapse in Wednesday's quake but were ones that were going up new. For me, it was a signal that my life was back to normal and I should start living that way. It was therapeutic to not think about what has been on my mind for the last 96 hours, a chance to put my energy and focus into something else (notice how both people and earthquakes can have energy and focus?). So as I go to sleep tonight, I head off to slumber with a more relaxed state of mind. While not free of the anxiety that goes along with being in a major seismological event just yet, I feel like I'm a whole lot closer to being back to normal - thanks in part to building some bookshelves.

return to normal, kinda

Its Friday morning now and school is back in session - at least for the teachers. We came back today to do some safety inspections and training, to prepare for the return of our students on Monday. The mood was a rather somber one as we all gathered in the auditorium for a short message from Carol Klusnik, the superintendent of FDR.

We did what you would expect us to - we talked about it. Each of us chatted with our friends and professional peers with a genuine interest in how each experienced the 25 earthquakes that have rattled Lima over the last 36 hours. Those who live in high-rise apartment buildings got a bigger ride than those of us closer to the ground. Tim, who lives on the 13th floor, had water slosh out of his toilets. Troy and Sam's apartment has cracked interior walls. Jeff thought his windows were going to implode. Claudia was in a store where things on the walls and shelves were flying off, smashing when they hit the ground. Blake and Laurie had their water heater explode and flood their bedroom. I feel lucky to have gone through this all with the small amount of shaking (relatively speaking) I felt.

After our meeting, we were instructed to go back to our classrooms and do an assessment of structural damage. While in the process of doing my inspection, another 5.9 aftershock hit, causing some concern among certain staff members. I figure that most of the energy was released some time ago and the aftershocks are going to be relatively mild. Others are a bit more alarmist in their attitude and are a bit more panicked than I am. I'm not being critical of them because I know that we all react differently to stress, we all need to express our fears in different ways. I've sought the comfort of a baseball cap today, although it is unprofessional, because of the feeling it gives me as I begin to deal with the stress of the events that have unfolded.

The morning came to a conclusion with the entire school (meaning faculty and staff) having an earthquake drill and reassuring ourselves of the procedures we need to take when the students come back to us on Monday. If we do have another quake during school hours, we all need to be mentally prepared for the scenario so that we can be calm if the students begin to panic.

The routine is starting to return and along with it, a sense of familiarity about what is normal. While the aftershocks are still present, the fear of the moment is passing and we in Lima are getting back to something that resembles normal. As for the residents of Ica and Pisco, I can't even imagine their plight and my heart goes out to them. I wish I could go there and help although I don't know what I could do. Maybe donating some food and blankets to the Civil Defense is all I can do. Another feeling of helplessness...

life goes on

Surreal. That's the only word that really describes the last 24 hours. Since the first quake hammered its way through about 27 hours ago, I feel like I've been having an out-of-body experience. Even though I know that its me going through this intricate set of events, it doesn't feel like it.

At 6:40 pm on August 15th, 2007, a magnitude 8.0 earthquake exploded from the ground and changed the surface of the Earth and the lives of many people that live around it. It affected me as well but not in the life changing (or life ending) way that it did for those that live in the cities of Ica and Pisco. For me, the earthquake took me out of my routine and made me examine more closely what it is that I am doing here in Peru and here in life. Only the experience wasn't truly mine, as I noted that it feels like a completely surreal event in my life - one that is more like a dream than anything else.

This morning I got an email from CBS News saying that they wanted to interview people in Peru about their experience with the quake. I agreed to be interviewed on camera but told them that I doubted my insight would be anything different than what the other 8 million people in Lima went through. In fact, my experience would probably be less dramatic since I live in an affluent neighborhood and damage here was rather minimal. But they said they wanted to interview me nonetheless and as I sat down in front of the camera, I noted how I felt an absence of emotion. It was though I knew what I had lived through but that my experience wasn't a real one. There was no Hollywood soundtrack, no explosions going off in the distance, or fantastic acts that had to be accomplished by the person occupying my body. And as I answered the questions that Miguel asked me, I felt a strange disconnect to everything that was my life for the 18 hours before the camera crew came to my apartment. To this moment, I still feel strangely disconnected from what has happened and the reality of it all is still so surreal.

My interview didn't make the CBS Evening News and I can't blame them for not putting my soundbytes in the segment. I wasn't traumatized, I had no extreme stories of survival, I was just an average person who lived through a large seismic event - just like the other 8 million people in Lima. I also didn't want to sensationalize what I had been through as it wasn't that sensational. All I did was stand in a doorway and wonder when the shaking was going to stop. The feeling of helplessness was shared by each and every person who lived through the quake; I was just one of millions that were reminded of just how powerless we are when dealing with Mother Nature. It has been noted that in news, "if it doesn't bleed, it doesn't lead" and I definitely didn't give them any ammunition to lead their broadcast with. What can I say, I didn't want to give the main stream media an inaccurate representation of what I went through - no sense trying to make my life look bad when it really isn't.

So as today went on, life in Peru took a different turn. Traffic dropped off dramatically as people stayed at home and tended to the frayed nerves that we all share. Those that I did see wandering the street today had the same blank expression that I did; I imagine they were feeling the same surreal moment that I was. Even tonight when I went to dinner with friends (we wanted to be around fellow "survivors"), we each described our day in relatively the same way. We each stayed in and tried to come to grips with the ground shaking and how it affected our lives. We each noted that it made us appreciate our friends and family a lot more, at least for the moment, as it reminded us what truly matters in life.

I've been surfing around the internet, seeing reports of how bad things are in Pisco and Ica, and finding myself grateful for the hand I've been dealt. I know the main stream media is doing its best to make it "bleed" for the viewing audience back in the States but I also know that within a week, the story will be off the headlines and people will have forgotten about it. Its sad really, that life events need to be sensationalized to get coverage but that's the media for ya.

In any case, tomorrow the teachers return to school for an attempt to return to the routine that makes life more real and less surreal. We will get things back to normal and go on because that's what you do. Life goes on...

surveying the damage

Its the "day after" the big one, although we are still experiencing aftershocks here that are powerful in their own right.

SHIT! Why is it that I we get aftershocks while I'm blogging?! As I was writing that previous sentence, another one rumbled through. It was pretty small, I'll check on the USGS website to see how powerful it was. Hold on... That was a 5.2

Its 10:15 am and Peru is starting to come to grips with the aftermath of the series of quakes that we've had over the last 18 hours. It was a relatively easy night for me, considering what others endured in this country. I got up this morning and did a survey in my apartment to see any damage in the daylight. There is a thin crack in the wall that starts at the ceiling and runs a jagged line down towards the floor that is about 1m (3 feet) long. There is some concrete that crumbled off from where the ceiling and walls come together - evidence of the shearing effect the building withstood. My building was put together pretty darn good and I'm very grateful to the guys who put it together for the wonderful job they did. Unfortunately I fear that the workers who did construct this building may have suffered a lot more than I did as they can't afford to live in places where the brick or concrete is reinforced.

After my tour of my apartment, Lupe (my maid) came in to work for the day. She described some of the damage in her neighborhood and it sounds rather extensive. Not as bad as pictures that I see on the internet of places like Ica, but still a considerable amount of damage. A few houses crumbled to the ground, several houses lost walls, roofs slid a meter or two from where they were placed, etc. It makes me realize just how lucky I was to not only survive such a big series of quakes but come out relatively unscathed.

I hopped on the internet to see what happened throughout the night and found out that the USGS upgraded our 7.7 (what I initially thought) up to an 8.0. The aftershocks were powerful in their own right - as you can see by the list below. (Sorry about the formatting issue - the table seems to have dropped down WAY on the page. Scroll down - I swear its there!)

Local Time	Magnitude	Distance from Lima
6:40 pm	8.0	150 km SSE
7:02 pm	5.6	145 km SSE
7:19 pm	5.8	255 km SSE
8:02 pm	5.8	145 km SSE
8:35 pm	5.4	225 km SSE
9:17 pm	5.0	205 km SSE
9:54 pm	5.0	165 km SSE
11:04 pm	5.6	175 km SSE
11:16 pm	5.0	140 km S
11:23 pm	5.2	215 km SE
12:16 am	6.3	260 km SSE
1:10 am	5.0	225 km S
1:43 am	4.5	155 km S
2:46 am	4.7	125 km S
4:02 am	4.9	240 km SSE
4:43 am	5.3	240 km SSE
6:35 am	6.0	270 km SSE
10:11 am	5.2	150 km SSE

*all data courtesy of the USGS website*

And in case you were wondering - yes, I woke for each and every one of those. It wasn't really a night's sleep as brief moments of rest in between waking up thinking I was going to need to rush out of my building. I slept with my clothes on, shoes next to my bed, and keys, wallet, and passport in my pockets (ya never know what you might need). I estimated that the majority of the energy stored in the tectonic plates was released during the 8.0 quake but you never know just how powerful the aftershocks are going to be and prepared for a worse case scenario of needing to flee the country with what was on my back. After seeing scenes of utter devastation in places like Pakistan and Iran, you never know what might happen when you live in a 3rd world country.

Am I justified for being perhaps a little paranoid and thinking the worst? If you've felt Mother Nature unleash her fury on you without any warning, than you know that I probably am justified. There's something that just makes you a little jumpy when the Earth shakes for 2 minutes and the structures you think are rock solid move back and forth by as much as a meter - so thanks for the latitude with my paranoia.

Its now 10:53 am and I've gotten through the emails from friends and family, all are glad to hear that I'm ok (as am I). Phones and cell reception are back in working order for Lima although I doubt it is for the area of Ica that was hit the hardest (and is still getting these wonderful aftershocks right under them!). With school being canceled by Alan Garcia (president of Peru), today is a rare day to get your nerves back to normal and check out the damages that have occurred to buildings - especially school buildings. I'll venture out here in a little bit to see how the rest of Miraflores faired, I'll update more after I go for a walk.

Thanks to one and all for reading and taking the time to send your best wishes. Its nice to know that you are thinking of me in this time of uncertainty. More news as I know it.

big fuckin' earthquake!

Well, here's something that I don't write about very much - the way the Earth moves under my feet. Literally. And it was a big honkin' earthquake at that, my biggest ever. Having a 7.7 magnitude earthquake roll through while you're eating dinner can sure change how your night goes. (an aftershock just hit while I was writing that last sentence)

The time is currently 7:20 pm local time. My land line and cell phone are both dead but amazingly my internet connection is still working. Its been an eventful last hour. At 6:40 pm local time, the earthquake started to shake the ground beneath my feet. I was reading some worthless article on the internet and eating dinner at the time. At first it was a gentle swaying from side to side, progressing more and more as the seconds passed. Eventually it got to the point where I started to get worried, the world was really shaking in a big way and I was sitting at my computer doing nothing about it.

The time is now 7:52 and I'm not normally a person who types slowly but I've been a little preoccupied with contacting others and seeing how my friends are doing. So here's how things happened next.

As the shaking got more and more violent, I decided that sitting at my computer wasn't the best place to be. I got up and stood in the doorway, thinking that it really wasn't the safest place despite what I remembered from living in California. I noted how the apartment building was REALLY shaking and I felt extremely vulnerable (AFTERSHOCK NOW!!!) while standing in the doorway.

I could hear from outside the breaking of glass from other buildings and car alarms going off. While standing in the doorway, I heard a loud pop and the saw a blue glow emanating from my living room window - a transformer on the street had succumb to the quake. But as I stood there, the shaking got more and more intense. Doors were swinging back and forth while the water I was drinking (next to my computer) was sloshing up and out of the glass. I went and grabbed the water - I didn't want it to spill on the computer - and returned to the protective cover of my doorway.

I stood there for what seemed like forever, what I now estimate to be about 90 seconds. I don't know if my approximation of time is correct, for all I know it could have only been half of that but it did feel like forever. All I did know is that the world was moving quite a bit and I was on one heck of a rollercoaster ride.

Its now 8:22 and I've settled down a little bit - answering a few phone calls on Skype from friends and family in the US but still no phone connection (land line or cell) to speak of. I wonder how long it will take to reestablish those lines of communication. In any case, I can at least tell my family and friends that I'm ok and that my building hasn't sustained any noticeable damage.

After the initial earthquake was over, I grabbed my phones and tried to start calling fellow expats to see how they were doing. I was amazed that my internet connection was still up so I got online and went to the USGS website to see how big it was. Initial reporting said that it was a 7.7 magnitude quake that originated about 160 km (100 miles) from Lima and fairly shallow - 10 km (6 miles).


Initially CNN originally reported that there were 3 earthquakes, a 7.7 and two 7.5s, but that has been since cleared up as a computer glitch at the USGS. Good thing they came out and amended that because I don't remember feeling 3 separate earthquakes, I'd hate to think that I'd lost my mind during the rumbling. ;-) As the night has progressed, there have been a few aftershocks to grace my evening - as you could tell by when I noted them during my entry. I went through and checked about them on the USGS website and they list the aftershocks as 5.9 and 5.8. Hopefully the worst of the evening is behind me and I can calm my nerves for a somewhat normal night's sleep.

Which brings me to now - 8:40 pm, exactly two hours after the initial rocking of my world. Its reminded me of just how exciting life can be - even when you aren't really wanting it to be. I know that being an expat has a certain sense of adventure to it, tonight is just another part of that adventure... right?

tale of two meanings

My students and I were working through a problem the other day in class - one where a sign is hanging on a building - and an interesting question came up.

"Mr. Nomad - did you mean SIGN or SINE in your last sentence?"
"SIGN. While we have to take the sine of the number, we are looking for the tension of the wire on the sign."
"OK, just wanted to make sure we were talking about the same thing."

English just happens to be a language where one pronunciation can have more than one spelling. Like their, there, and they're; read and red; and as noted above - sign and sine.

So I turned the question to my group of expert Spanish speakers and asked, "Are there any words like that in Spanish?" I got a response that is quite intriguing.

The verbs casar and cazar in Spanish sound virtually the same but have interesting differences in meanings. Casar is "to marry" while cazar is "to hunt". Now there is one to ponder! Is it pure coincidence or is there a reason why the two words sound extremely similar?

dual personality

In an effort to speak more about the things that I notice here in Peru as compared to other places, I took notice of something that happens to me on a daily basis - a taxi ride home. It is an eye-opening experience if you've never taken a cab ride in countries outside North American or Western Europe - mainly because of the way that traffic flows in these locations. Peru is no different in the fact that traffic lines painted on the road as mere "suggestions" as to where to drive and the rules of the road aren't the same ones that appear on the driver's exam.

A cab ride home for me from school is usually around S/10 (10 soles) or a little under $3. Considering the ride is somewhere in the vicinity of 18 km (12 miles), the cost of transportation is fairly cheap - even for a gringo. If I were a Peruvian, prices would be roughly 1/2 to 3/4 of what I pay but I'm not complaining, I can handle paying a little extra on my salary. The cost of the fare is arranged in advance, before you get into the taxi. You and the driver negotiate on a price and when a major difference of opinion occurs, one party or the other can walk (drive) away from the transaction. It's a rather unorthodox way to do things but good in the sense that it doesn't matter the route, time, or traffic involved - what you bargain for it what you pay. It puts a price on your ability to haggle for a deal and I'm not known as being the best negotiator in my circle of friends - mostly because I don't mind paying an extra dollar for going somewhere when they need the money more than I do and $1 extra for a cab ride is pretty good, considering that I'm always paying less than $4 for wherever I go.

But once you get in the car, the typical Peruvian (or Latin) image goes out the window. Latins in general are known for their laid back attitude and ambivalence for being on time. Heck, last year the Peruvian government issued a formal decree to the people to start being on time because business was starting to hurt from the fact that people were late for meetings and losing out on money from cultures where timeliness is a virtue. I've not seen a change in the timeliness of Peruvians since this decree, but at least the realization is there and they are thinking about doing something about it. *Side note - when the average Peruvian was asked about being late for meetings, 93% said that it was always the other person that was late.*

As I said, that image of the Latin/Peruvian goes out the window as soon as the car door closes. Drivers are always hell bent to get in front of the other person at whatever risk it takes. The machismo culture takes over when on the road and the internal fire starts to show. Racing to the front, honking all the time, flashing of the brights - all in an effort to get the car in front of them to move faster. Yesterday my cab driver employed all of these tactics as I headed home. During rush hour. In a traffic jam.

What did he think he was going to accomplish by honking his horn and flashing his lights at the car in front of him when we were all going about 5 km/hr (3 mph)? Did he think that traffic was somehow going to magically move faster because he wanted it to? I dunno - I didn't ask.

So he became frustrated and tried to maneuver around the car by cutting over a lane (and another car in the process) when he got the chance. As Murphy's Law dictates, when you are trying to move faster in traffic, you always end up going slower. And sure enough, the car he was trying to pass eventually ended up getting way ahead of us (because he kept trying to pass other cars) and we made our march to the rear. Latin fire only managed to do two things - get him more irritated at traffic and slow our progress.

In any case, I made it home with no battlescars or near-death experiences, so no worries there. But taking note of the small things is what I'm aiming to do and this is just one of those small things that I noticed. :-) Until my next tidbit of Peruvian culture...

change in focus

Ok, so I know that I've been a bad blogger this year - my posts have fallen off considerably from when I lived in Holland but that's the way things go sometimes. Its not that I've been completely ignoring the fact that I have this place to chat with whomever what to read, I actually have been thinking about posting here, its just that I've always found a way to distract myself after coming up with a good idea.

So with the time that I have today, I thought that I would sit down and write something since I've not done so in a long time. At first I thought I would write about the upcoming space shuttle mission, STS 118, in which Barbara Morgan will finally be the first teacher in space. She was the backup to Christa McAuliffe on the Challenger mission in 1986 but never got the chance as the program was canceled after the accident. Since I am a NASA junkie, this seemed liked the way to go...

But then I realized that I should be doing something else with this blog. Plenty of people can go online and read about the launch that is going to take place on August 8th and the AP and NASA can do a better job of talking about the launch and this mission than I can. So I decided to focus on a different topic - the idea that goes into the name of this blog - the fact that I am an expatriate.

An expatriate is someone who is born in one country and lives in another. I am an American by birth but have spent many years of my life (almost 10) living in countries other than the US. This is something that most of the world doesn't have the opportunity to experience and I figure that it is here that I should focus my thoughts more often. I've been known to go on rants in the past and while I still will rant from time to time, I should start going with a more unified theme. So the theme is now going to reflect more about the life that I've led as an expat and how that differs from the culture that most people recognize on the TV as being American.

But that brought me to a mental block to start off with - just what exactly should I talk about? There are so many things that are different about living in another country that its hard to put your finger on one specific topic to talk about. And I've not had anything too "Peruvian" happen to me in the last 48 hours or so that I can comment on so I decided to go with something else - what it feels like to go home.

As an expat, we all get the opportunity to go home to our native culture sometimes and when we do, it can be a mixed bag of emotions. For me, my 'round the US tour that I did in July on my motorcycle was an interesting experience for me. I spent 3 weeks riding from California to Ohio and back, spending the time riding on small highways and seeing old friends. As I did so, I tried to get back in touch with my American roots as I will be leaving Peru at the end of this academic year. I didn't want to be too much of a stranger in my own country when I return.

The trip was magnificent and I can hardly wait to do something like that again. Riding on the open road is more a zen experience than anything else. You are so concentrated on riding and the road that most of the mundane things that float through your head when driving a car just don't exist. The problems I had in my head made their way back to my subconscious for processing there while I spent my time making sure I didn't get hit by any cars or fall off the twisty roads (like Colorado) I was riding upon. A truly cleansing time for me.

What I noticed and remarked upon my return to Lima was the ease of which I had with being in the US. I even felt a bit guilty for how easy it was; I don't know why, I just did. I made sure to challenge myself a little when I was in Manitou Springs, CO by speaking in Spanish to a Peruvian whom I met there - just to refresh myself as to the language I was going to return to and also to let this vendor feel a little more at ease by speaking in his native tongue. I know I appreciate it when people speak English to me here in Peru, so I thought I would return the favor.

But when I got back to Lima, I chatted with some of my friends who had returned to their places of origin and they made the same comment that I did - being home was very easy. In a way, being an expat is difficult in that there is a challenge to the way you live on a daily basis. You are immersed in a culture that is foreign to yours, speaking a language that isn't native to you, and dealing with people who have a different set of norms and values. It can be a little scary at times and I will admit that it can be overwhelming occasionally in trying to deal with that every day. But in another way, we all get into a rhythm and tend to forget about the differences we feel day to day. You get accustomed to a new routine and that's what makes this all feel so normal even though its so different. Its when you return to a place where you don't have to think about the differences that you begin to realize just how easy life can be.

My life has been enriched as a result of being an expat and I cherish the fact that my father had the gumption to leave rural Illinois and make a choice to try something different. I hope to give my children the same opportunity (when I have them) and allow them to see what the world has to offer. There's something gratifying about knowing that you've been able to experience and grow from something that most would dislike and can't even fathom trying. I'm not trying to pat my own back and say how wonderful I am; rather I'm saying that I feel lucky to have had the chances to make the choices that I have over my life so far. And from those choices, I've become a more knowledgeable person who has a set of unique experiences to share. My goal for the next year is to share more of these expatriate experiences with the world, wherever my readers may be. So tune in for "Life in Peru" over the next 10 months, I'll see what I can share with you.

living off the land

I'm currently on a road trip around the US on my motorcycle and visiting old friends along the way. One such stop in Amesville, Ohio put me at Brad and Svea's house (Svea and I knew each other from our days as undergrads) and my stop there was quite an eye-opener.

Brad and Svea have a farm and really do live off the land. The meat comes from cows and pigs that they feed and maintain, the veggies are in a garden that are less than 20 meters from their backdoor. There are trees planted for apples and pears (maybe more, I can't remember) and soon fruit will be abundant for their family's use. The food is all homemade and comes from what they have and truly is organic in every way, shape, and form. Meals are made completely from scratch and love goes into everything that goes on the table. It is something that completely amazed me.

Grocery shopping doesn't happen very often and when it does, its nothing too dramatic - just grains and things that they don't grow at the house. I am in awe of this family of five in what they do and how they do it. It comes mostly from necessity but I'd like to think that they'd continue to do it no matter what; its just wholesome living. People who live in cities (such as myself) would love to have such amenities as having a garden with fresh food to eat but alas, that isn't the case. We rely on others to do it for us and pay them in return. The exchange of money seems to take the love out of food and somehow lessens the nutritional value of what makes it to the stores (or maybe its the pesticides...).

Whatever the case, Brad and Svea are rock stars in my opinion for doing what they do and it makes me wish I could do things a little different with my life. With this being said, I'd probably flop at the notion of doing a garden myself and would kill everything in a garden of my own if given the chance. But at least I got the chance to see someone doing it for real and doing it the way it was done less than a hundred years ago. Its amazing how technology has changed our world in so many ways.

Alternative Rugby Commentary - The Tri Nations

Since I've not posted in forever, I thought I would put a little something that's grabbed my attention lately. A short that highlights a little about the ongoing Tri-Nations, which the All Blacks took the first match 26-21 over the Springboks in SA. In any case, I've enjoyed all of these shorts that were put out and I'll be posting more of his work (Frasier Davidson) later. Enjoy!

a day without english

So yesterday was a day that I learned so much while being completely out of my comfort zone. I wanted to sit down and write about it last night but didn't have the mental capacity to put the words together that I wanted to. Why? I was out of my native tongue for pretty much the entire day.

A friend of mine named Erica is a Peruvian and she invited me out to the local zoo with her son, Joaquin, who is 4. I was a little uneasy about it but eventually said yes to the date and headed off into the unknown. I didn't know what I was getting myself into but that's part of the fun of trying a new experience - jumping out of the comfort area and seeing how things turn out. The key to my trepidation was the fact that she speaks no English and my Spanish isn't exactly the best; ok, its worse than that and I just don't want to take responsibility for it being as bad as it is.

We met at a nearby gathering place where she promptly got a cab to the park that would have cost me triple the bargained price. Being a large white man in a Hispanic populace means that I tend to pay more for things that what locals do and I was grateful for her expertise in that regard. When we got to the zoo it became rapidly apparent that the attraction that day wasn't to be the animals, rather the Peruvian woman who was walking with a pale Sasquatch next to her. I think I was stared at for the majority of the day but after the first hour, I stopped noticing as I was too busy trying to keep my brain from melting. Was it hot? Not even close (its winter here) but rather it is because I was trying to make conversation in a language that I'm not very good at speaking.

Erica was nice and patient with me for the day but the day didn't end after just a few hours. Her son was getting ready to meltdown (he's 4 and needs time to do such things) so we grabbed a cab and I was taken to her place for an introduction to the family. I wasn't anxious about meeting them at all, I really wanted to see what living conditions were like for a middle class Peruvian family. So I headed in to meet the 4 generations of people that lived in their tiny 3 bedroom apartment.

Grandmother, mother, daughter (Erica), and her son (Joaquin) all live in what would be considered "low income housing" in some cities in the US. The conditions aren't the greatest but they make the best of the cramped living spaces that they can afford. I was quickly introduced and welcomed into the house where I was inspected by the family, for reasons that need not to be mentioned. In any case, it was only a few minutes before the decision was made to go to dinner at a local restaurant - I'll let you guess who was doing the buying (my choice actually, I wasn't going to let them pick up the tab!). And during dinner, it was more Spanish and more fumbling for words, the status quo for the day. But it was getting easier as Erica did a decent job of helping me out and I was understanding more and more as the day progressed.

When the day was done, I got into a cab and headed home - having not spoken a word of English in the entire day. I felt relieved to get home as I no longer had to think about what I was going to say but also grateful for the experience of being able to truly be immersed in a foreign culture. That is one of the things that I truly enjoy about being an expat - being able to do things just like that. There is just something unique about being in a completely foreign environment and not only surviving but enjoying the experience.

The spell was broken however, after I got home. I just needed to do something in my native language and so I called my sister so I could catch up with her, and speak a little English. So while it wasn't a complete day without English, it was pretty darn close and while I enjoyed the experience of immersion, I gotta admit that sometimes hearing your own language can be quite soothing...

the domain name is mine!

Well, it took me some time because I just wasn't sure if I wanted to do it or not but I finally made the choice to visit Go Daddy and buy the name of my blog. Effective immediately, this blog is expatnomad.com!

So change your links and come on back when you wanna see if there is something new here. I've been a little lax with posting this year but that will happen. Welcome to a new name with an old look.

- Expat

baseball and the life of being an expat

I was having a discussion the other day with a friend of mine and we came up with an interesting analogy about two topics that I never really thought would go together but we managed to come up with a pretty solid.

The baseball season in the US just started a few weeks ago and I'm realizing just how much I did miss watching the sport when I lived in Holland. Granted, I coached the softball team there for two years, but its just not the same. And now with MLB.com broadcasting the games via the internet, I get my chance to keep up with baseball - especially the hometown faves, the Cleveland Indians. What can I say, a glutton for punishment and enjoy the moments of promise (the late 90s) where the team shines. In any case, I appreciate the game and what it takes to play it.

As a spectator's sport, it isn't the most energetic or exciting to watch. The game is exceedingly slow with brief moments intense drama. But the game isn't about the brief moments when the ball is in play, its so much more than that. Baseball is mostly mental and knowing the strategy of how to really play the sport is akin to being a chess master. Its not just a game where a guy goes out there and hurls the ball at 80-95 mph and another guys hopes to hit that ball to a place where one of nine defenders isn't. Each pitch influences how the game transpires and how each pitch is played depends on how the next one will go. Appreciating the strategy and athleticism of baseball is what keeps me coming back (even though I'm a hockey fan through and through).

During the conversation I had with Ilse, we got to talking about baseball and eventually it turned into how it is somewhat reflected in life as an expatriate. Baseball is played in many different stadiums around the world and none of them are the same, each field has its own feel. People who play on that field grow accustomed to those conditions and have home-field advantage (not to mention fan support). Traveling to another stadium means you have to adjust to those conditions and play your best under conditions that may not suit you. Maybe left field has a giant wall to hit over or maybe the bullpen is in foul territory and fielding fly-balls is more difficult. Whatever it may be, you have to adjust or fail miserably.

And then the parallels to being an expat started to take shape. Living overseas is like being on the road for baseball. A new country requires you to adapt to the conditions and learn how to play your game "on the road" if you want to succeed with your goals, whatever they may be. Not only do you have to adapt to the new surroundings, you need to adapt to the game as it goes along. You may see the same pitch more than once but when the timing of that pitch can dramatically change how you react to it. There is a strategy to being successful in baseball just as there is a strategy to being successful as an expatriate.

I've noticed in life that we rarely make HUGE life-changing decisions, rather we make a series of small ones that influence how our present plays out. I'm a product of those small decisions that I've made and as it turns out, I've made some good, small decisions (or else I'd be somewhere else in my life at the moment). A small decision to go to a party when I was a sophomore in college has turned me into the teacher that I am today (believe it or not, yes). Baseball is similar in that the small decision of whether to throw a fastball for the first pitch of an at-bat can dramatically affect how the rest of the AB goes and the cascade effect of the rest of the game. A small decision to start off with a fastball that just misses on the inside corner may determine how the game turns out for you.

Now just as one pitch doesn't decide the outcome of a game, neither does one decision in your life. Winning a game in baseball may mean that you must make another choice to correct a decision that you don't like the outcome of, like walking a batter. So you work hard to concentrate into trying to make a better pitch so the current batter grounds into a double play. The same can be said of living overseas (or just living in general) - sometimes you need to need to really concentrate on making the next choice to improve your situation rather than ride a bad decision into oblivion. Little choices turn into what our lives will be remembered as...

So at the end of our chat, she said that I should write this down as a way to let others in on my new-found knowledge and insight (a topic that I'm sure has been written about infinitely before) and so I did. In doing so, I made the choice to ignore my homework and write a blog that only a few people read. But hey, its my choice and that's fine with me. I'll just need to make sure that my next pitch is a slider that nibbles the outside corner for the strike-out.

mrs. smith, can bobby come out and play for a national championship?

This rant comes at the suggestion of a former roommate of mine from Rotterdam. I agree with his stance on this issue and have decided to bring it to light. MO - I've got your back!

Its the time of year that I really like - the end of March is also the end of the regular season for the NHL. Its the time of year when the games take on different significance as teams become more desperate to make themselves eligible for the playoffs. *A classic case of people not performing when they should and now are panicking to get done what they should have done months earlier - win games.* Whatever the case, its a great time to watch hockey - too bad its not on TV since the NHL's commish screwed up and lost ESPN as a broadcaster (fuck us very much Gary Bettman...). However, if I were to be able to watch it on the tele, I would be presenting the same argument - even though my team is on the cusp of NOT making the playoffs.

Right now in the NHL there are 30 teams in two conferences (properly called the Campbell Conference and Prince of Wales Conference, but those names were stripped by the magnificent shithead known as Gary Bettman for easier names like Eastern and Western). In any case, there are 15 teams in each conference and of those 15 teams, 8 make it to the playoffs. In case you didn't do the math - that's over 50%.

That's right, the chance to play for the Stanley Cup - the championship of the league, is contended by over half of the people who play in the league. Wait - isn't a championship tournament supposed to bring the best teams together to vie for the ultimate prize? If that's the case, why is it that 53% of teams in the NHL make the playoffs? Oh yeah, I forgot - more revenue for the owners...

Don't be fooled, expanding the playoffs to 16 teams was done on purpose and that reason isn't going to change anytime soon. The owners realize that the more games their team plays, the more money they get. Believe it or not, there used to be a time when there were only 6 teams IN THE ENTIRE LEAGUE!!! And of those 6, only the top 2 regular season performers squared off for the Cup.

Its not exclusive to just hockey though, there are plenty of other money-hungry whores out there dying to get their hand on your money. Oh no, there is far worse than the NHL out there - at least the players in the NHL have a chance to earn some of the proceeds. The worst part is the NCAA and its plethora of bowls.

Last year there were a total of 118 Division I (now called NBS as to not confuse it with the D1 AA schools which will now be the NCS) that put a team into the NCAA football game. *Football is an expensive sport to run and as a result, not every school out there that is of the proper size can afford to run a program. Basketball is much cheaper and therefore more school participate in it.* Of those 118 schools that had a football team last year, 64 of them made it to a bowl game.

64!!!!

That's a greater percentage than the NHL puts into its playoffs. And the kicker is - only one bowl game decides the championship! The rest of the bowl games are just a way for schools to make more money on the athletes that play at those schools, many of them play for free. (I can hear people saying that they do get money in the form of scholarships and illegal contributions, but the majority of players aren't on scholarship and aren't getting money from scouts or shoe companies)

So why is it that this is happening? The NFL and MLB only take the top 4 in each conference (league for baseball), what's wrong with that model? Why is it that everyone thinks that they DESERVE to play in "the big game"? Why do people get mad when their school is "left out" of a bowl game when the team was barely won more than it lost? Does every Tom, Dick, and Harriett need to go play for a championship?

NO. Not everyone is a winner - deal with it. You're team had a lackluster season and should just go home and think about what you can do to make it better for next season. And this is coming from a person who went to a university that had its first bowl game since 1968 this year (and we lost that game just like the Tangerine Bowl of '68). I loved the fact that Ohio University made it to a bowl game - it made me proud to be a Bobcat but the simple truth is that the team lost in the MAC championship game and was only 2nd best in the conference. Simply put, they weren't the best and why should they have been rewarded with an additional game for not being the best?

Easy - money. Companies make fortunes off these games and Americans go farther into debt trying to do whatever they can to be a part of another Americans life. They want EVERYONE to feel special, EVERYONE to feel like a champion; ya know what? Get over it and go home! Stop paying so much money for all this crap and get a handle on your life. Spend the holidays with your college son/daughter rather than flying to Orlando to watch a team that plays for the school that you went to 22 years ago. Save some money on the fan gear and invest the time you would spend going the game with your family. Stop feeding the machine that is hyper-consumerism.

Alas, this rant has gone on long enough. Just thinking out loud...

consumerism takes a break

I was logging on to my MSN Money account today when I came across an article that I really enjoyed reading. I plan on sending it to my friends that live in the States and see what their reaction is (click on 'consumerism takes a break' above for full story).

What I read really gave me hope - and I'm not being sarcastic. It gave me hope that someday the great treadmill of American consumerism would start to slow down and the country, as a whole, would start being a bit more fiscally responsible and not so far in debt. The author, Liz Pulliam Weston, put forth a challenge to her readers - only buy the necessities for a month and see what happens. In other words, stop buying the crap you don't need and just purchase those things you do to survive. No Starbucks frappachino, no extra pair of blue jeans that make you butt look good, no travel books to Machu Pichu that you want to go to - just the basics. What she and her readers found is refreshing to hear and there are some unexpected results.

The obvious bit about saving money is good. While some people did 'fall off the wagon' and make the occasional purchase they didn't need, the majority stayed the course and followed through with the experiment's design. Most found that they saved $400-$500 per month. That's an extra $6000 a year! One teacher managed to save $800 in the month of bare minimum spending - not too shabby at all. So from a financial perspective, it was a success.

But there was more to it than that. As people followed through with the experiment, they found there were additional side effects. In an attempt to save money, people started taking their lunch to work and lost weight through eating healthy. When they got bored, they didn't go to the mall to see what was on sale, they went for a walk in the park and gained in fitness. Instead of meeting for dinner and/or drinks at the TGIF's down the street, they went over to each other's place and spent time enriching themselves in the tranquility of a home.

How amazing! People who spend less can have the following habits - healthier lifestyle, greater depth of personal relationships, and a stronger sense of well-being from a lack of financial hardship. No longer do you have to worry about the idea of whether or not you can actually pay off your monthly bills. By doing things in moderation (like spending and eating crap food), you can achieve so much of what you are looking for without looking so hard.

So America - take heed. You may have the strongest and largest economy in the world but at what cost? Try putting the credit cards away and stop giving yourself everything you want, only meet your needs. Don't be so spoiled that you think you MUST have everything you desire; get away from the idea of keeping up with the Joneses. What you might find if you do just might be what you're looking for instead...

fired for doing your job?

This blog originally was intended to be about issues relating to education and as you all know, it never really ended up being that. Its become more of a place for me to rant about one thing or another and make my opinion known. After reading this story (click on 'fired for doing your job?' above) about a teacher in Yonkers, this post is a flash back to what this blog was intended to be.

So a teacher in Yonkers is on administrative leave and will probably be fired for doing what his job. Jeffrey Kirby of the Pearls Hawthorne school in Yonkers teaches 7th grade there, or at least he did. Mr. Kirby was removed from his classroom for asking students to draw pictures of the male anatomy on the board.

Now when you first read that, you may think to yourself, "Well he should get fired for that. That's inappropriate for just any teacher to ask of his middle school students." Only Mr. Kirby teaches ANATOMY, or at least he tried to.

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't anatomy the study of the human body and I do believe the penis is a part of the human (male) body. What's wrong with asking a student to be able to draw or annotate a diagram of something that s/he is learning? Should we fire math teachers for asking their students to draw a parallelogram? Should english teachers be removed from their classrooms for asking students to diagram sentences? Heck, should I - as a physics teacher - be sent home with my pink slip when I ask my kids to draw a picture that represents the forces acting on an object?

The answers to each and every one of those questions is an emphatic and resounding NO! So why is the Superintendent Bernard Pierorazio saying that it (the content covered) was "age inappropriate" for the students of the class? Age inappropriate??? HE WAS TEACHING THE STATE MANDATED CURRICULUM!!! This guy was doing his job, educating kids about what the human reproductive system looks like and is being fired for doing what the state told him to.

This is just wrong and support needs to be shown for Jeffrey Kirby. I went to the Pearls Hawthorne school's website so that I could send him an email as a showing of my support. HE'S ALREDY BEEN REMOVED FROM THE STAFF LISTING. That's right, the school doesn't want anyone to know how to contact him to show support. While at the school's website, I checked to see if he was teaching the curriculum that was written. The curriculum maps are linked on the site but you get a 404 error (file not found) when you try to access the maps. So I went to the NY State Education website and found the pdf of their curriculum, to see if Mr. Kirby was indeed teaching was he was supposed to. Here's what the curriculum says he is supposed to teach.

PERFORMANCE INDICATOR 1.2 - Explain the functioning of the major human organ systems and their interactions.
Major Understandings:
1.2a Each system is composed of organs and tissues which perform specific functions and interact with each other, e.g., digestion, gas exchange, excretion, circulation, locomotion, control, coordination, reproduction, and protection from disease.
1.2i The male and female reproductive systems are responsible for producing sex cells necessary for the production of offspring.

So what happens when kids, who are in the midst of puberty and wonder about their sexual self, ask a question about how the male and female reproductive systems work? Does the teacher say, "Sorry kids, I can only tell you that there are reproductive systems and that's what makes embryos?" No, because then parents would get in an uproar about how an ANATOMY teacher didn't teach them what the STATE MANDATED CURRICULUM told them to.

Look at Performance Indicator 1.2 - It says to "explain the functioning of the major organ systems". How exactly does a teacher get a student to understand how an organ system works without having them know the parts and be able to describe how those parts work? And what's wrong with asking kids to volunteer to come to the board to draw a representation of a major organ system? Would he be in this same mess if he asked someone to draw the circulatory system? No, but Lord help him if he had asked them to draw the excretory system - imagine a kid drawing an anus on the board...

I'm really chaffed at this one. I am embarassed that the Puritanical ethos of this country stymies someone when they try to educate people. What's wrong with learning about how the human body works? Aren't parents complaining that schools don't do enough to educate kids about the perils of sex and how to avoid teen pregnancy? How else are kids going to know how to prevent getting pregnant without knowing anything about how a penis or vagina work? Abstinence is great but most teens are sexually active and 7th graders are not known for making the best decisions. Some of them are mature enough to be fertile (and carry a child) and it would be a disservice to them to not educate them on their body and how it works.

Since I am a bit riled up about this, I've decided to write to the superintendent and let him know my opinion. There is a webpage specifically designated for contacting him. If you'd like to write to this spineless weasel who doesn't support his teachers, feel free to write to Bernard Pierorazio, Superintendent of Yonkers Public Schools. Be sure to tell him that he's a moron too.

whirlwind tour

Hello 2007!

Its been a while since my last post and that comes from the fact that I'm on vacation. I've spent the better part of the last month traveling around and seeing other parts of the world - at least outside of South America. For Christmas I was down in New Zealand and enjoyed seeing such a magnificent place, it is amazing how diverse the islands are. Now I'm in the US, visiting family and friends across the Southwest. Man its been a lot of traveling!

And it got me to wondering just how much traveling I have done over the last 12 months. It all started last February when I left Rotterdam and flew to Waterloo, Iowa for the UNI Overseas Job Fair. Since that weekend in the beginning of February, its been a bunch of planes, trains, automobiles, motorcycles, and ferries. So I sat down with Google Earth and made an estimate of the distance that I've traveled in the last year and I was kinda amazed at how much I've covered.

90,000 km (55,000 miles).

That's more than twice the circumference of the Earth (at the equator). Most of that is via airplanes, as to be expected, and includes 4 trans-Atlantic and 2 trans-Pacific journeys. Some of it comes via trains, almost 4000 km (2400 miles) on 3 different continents. Automobiles and ferries account for another 4000 km (2400 miles) and that omits the small amount covered via motorcycle. 7 different countries on 4 different continents, its been one heck of a year. No wonder I'm so tired. ;)

But travel is why I'm an international educator and I relish the amount of travel I am gifted with my profession (and its vacations). So here's to the joy of seeing new places and experiencing new cultures. I wonder how long this personal record of 90,000 km in one year will last...