Uncategorized – Robin Sparks https://robinsparks.com An American woman’s global search for a new country. Fri, 03 Mar 2017 09:22:36 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 5509250 A New Face For Communal Living https://robinsparks.com/uncategorized/a-new-face-for-communal-living/ Fri, 03 Oct 2014 20:20:50 +0000 https://robinsparks.com/?p=2043 As some of you may know, I have been living in an intentional community in Marin California this summer. You see, even when I am ‘home’, I experiment with new ways of living in the world.

I dreamed of living in community for years, and although I had thought it would happen in Bali, it has come to fruition in Marin, California. I love the lifestyle. In short I live with 8 people in a beautiful home in Novato, California. In our home we have 3 married couples and 2 single women. There are a number of other communal living houses in the Bay Area. I call it an upscale commune.

Here is the view from one of the community homes in Novato, California. The view from a community home in Novato

I will write more about my personal experience living in community in the near future, but for now, here is an article recently published in Common Ground Magazine, co-authored by 4 women in my community – Debra Price Van Cleave, Dr. Amore Vera Aida, Teri Bigio Berling, and Fay Freed.

A New Face For Communal Living – A New Day For an Ancient Way of Life

“You have been telling people that this is the 11th Hour, now you must go back and tell them that this is the Hour, and there are things to be considered: Where are you living? What are your relationships? It is time to create your community.” Hopi Elder

If you’re still imagining hippies and hacker hostels when you think about communal living, you may want to think again. Across the Bay Area, from twenty-something tech entrepreneurs to baby boomers, individuals, and couples with or without children, intentional communal living or co-living is often the housing option of choice and with good reason – the benefits are many.

Ancient tradition with a modern twist: Since ancient times, people across the globe have been living in groups for reasons as diverse as safety and security, building cities, developing agriculture, or simply fulfilling the human need for belonging. People then, as now, discovered that doing life alone is really not a viable option for having a thriving life, especially as we age.

Many of today’s communities worldwide are examples of ‘transitional’ lifestyles for a more sustainable future on Earth, rich with goodness but without compromise for the generations to come. This in comparison to the intensive consumption and wasteful style inherent in traditional nuclear families model. Examples of current styles of communal living include the Kibbutz movement in Israel, Findhorn Community in Scotland and Damanhur in Italy, co-housing and farm-based communities across America and worldwide, as well as the compound-style of extended family in Bali. Locally, Green Gulch Buddhist community and a multitude of techies living together in San Francisco and Silicon Valley are current examples of communal experiments.

A Marin County Successful Communal Experience: Let us tell you about our successful intentional community model for the urban-suburban environment. We are a diverse group of boomers and genXers living a thriving lifestyle in various configurations of households for more than 25 years. We are passionate about this powerful, viable, sustainable and timely solution for living vibrant lives.

Over the years, we’ve raised children, created businesses, traveled, invested, celebrated and grieved together. As a group, we’ve supported many socially responsible organizations. In short, we’ve intimately shared our lives and supported each other through all of life’s twists and turns. Community is a lifestyle we feel to be the perfect antidote to today’s fast-paced, stressful, expensive and isolating design. While it’s not for everyone, we’ve 
found that there are many benefits of intentional community living that might resonate for you, too.

Financial Benefits: Living in community is more affordable, making a higher lifestyle available by sharing. As a homeowner, you can enjoy having additional income and tax benefits. As a renter/housemate, you gain broader access to combined resources, and investment opportunities are sometimes possible.

Personal and Relationships Benefits: At whatever stage of life, you are not doing life alone while having access to privacy and required solitude when you choose. A powerful support system surrounds you in good times and in challenging situations; we solve problems together.

Singles have many more people with whom 
to interact, and the couples find that their relationships are enhanced by having other eyes and ears around them, as well as learning from others. Children are notably well-adjusted because they experience many styles of adult behaviors. There are extensive resources for their enrichment. By the nature of living together, one is prompted to show your best self. By sharing tasks, many hands make lighter work, and of course it’s more fun as well.

We make a difference as a group: Our lifestyle is more sustainable due to 
a lighter footprint on the planet. We share appliances (one stove and two refrigerators instead of many!) and bulk purchases of food and supplies; we use solar energy and conserve utilities. We live our lives with a committed purpose that is conscious and mindful.

Life becomes more creative and interesting: 
Imagine a life filled with delicious gourmet and organic meals together, celebrating occasions, business co-ventures, outrageous parties, multi-dimensional workshops, weddings, memorials, and traveling together!

Many intentional communities in this country and abroad are mission-driven or based on a particular philosophy or spiritual foundation or leader. Our community has no one leader. While we share many common values, we do not share a specific philosophy or religion. What our diverse community homes do share is a practice of appreciation and gratitude, for example giving thanks before a meal. We practice consensus decision-making so that everyone’s voice counts. Regular household meetings assure that all kinds of situations are addressed, with differences and preferences included. This makes for a smoother flow, and more joy and nurturing in community living. We like to say, “In communication, anything is possible.”

Many people ask us how this community got started? There are different ways to tell the story, but the bottom line is that it developed out of the long-standing friendships and sisterly relationships of the women. It was our aligned desire to raise our families in a design different than the single nuclear family model, that of ‘extended family’. The partnership we have received from the men in our lives has made this all possible. (In addition, we were given much guidance and support across the years from friends and experienced mentors.)

This article was co-written by four dear friends passionate about Communal Living: Debra Price Van Cleave, Dr. Amore Vera Aida, Teri Bigio Berling, and Fay Freed (Left to right in the photo.


Additional resources:

Fellowship for Intentional Community

http://www.ic.org
http://www.ic.org/communities-magazine-home
http://www.ic.org/directory

Global Eco-village Network

http://gen.ecovillage.org

Co-housing Association of the US

http:www.cohousing.org

Lafayette Morehouse Community, Lafayette, CA

http://www.lafayettemorehouse.com

Damanhur Federation, Piedemonte, Italy

http://www.damanhur.org

]]>
2043
Good Morning Bali https://robinsparks.com/uncategorized/good-morning-bali/ Wed, 15 Jan 2014 01:40:02 +0000 https://robinsparks.com/?p=1915 1-14-14

The view off the balcony in a friend's home in Ubud, Bali

The view off the balcony in a friend’s home, where I am staying for 20 days. Ubud, Bali

Early morning in Ubud, Bali after a predawn lightening storm and a soft, steady rain

and I am so Full. Here. Now.

In this moment, in this skin, feeling this heart, sitting outside surrounded by rice paddies, bare feet, wrapped in a sarong, soft tropical air bathing body, tasting Bali coffee and cashew milk on my tongue, hearing a scooter motor past, birds twitter, and unseen things cackle and crow life into being, the flutter of wings, the buzz of a bee, all of us … greeting this moment.

It is the time of day when my senses are open and the moment pregnant with possibility and JustIsness before the world has had its way with me.

And that overused word, Grateful, is what I feel.

I like to enter the day slowly with waking making love, meditation, padding quietly through the dawning day house and opening windows and doors to let in the day, lighting incense, loving and gently straightening my nest, making coffee, quiet, no words please and then…and then…sitting down to write, to let words flow, to let messages arrive, to hear, to transcribe. Like now. This moment in which everything exists and everything is possible.

Good morning Bali.

Thank you for your womblike warmth. I’ll be leaving you soon to greet another soul who is preparing to arrive on Planet Earth.

In this moment, I birth into a new day on your tropical wet soil surrounded by temples and wildlife and thunderstorms, love and possibility.

]]>
1915
Meanwhile, Back in Bali https://robinsparks.com/uncategorized/meanwhile-back-in-bali/ Fri, 03 Jan 2014 07:27:42 +0000 https://robinsparks.com/?p=1909 I love you writing and I’m committing to more intimate time with you. ]]> October 15, 2013

P1090220 Workshop attendees and me dining at Bali Fair Warung.

Milestone. Workshop finished. Writers festival wrapping up. I did not want to come back to Bali, but I had a workshop to teach and so come back I did.

And now? Feeling blessed. Surrounded by friends. Laughter. Wonder. My beautiful home on the edge of the jungle. So much possibility. The remembrance of magic and mystery. The smell of cloves in the land that is Bali.

And a new appreciation for this island. For its Alice in Wonderland quality that always brings me squarely back home or plops me into a world of pain. There is something so other-worldly about Bali. When I told my friend, Claire last night about how the workshop transpired and the organic creativity that unfolded, first we laughed about how seriously New Age this island can be. And then she said, “We forget and take for granted the energy of Bali.”

Yes, we do.

I am watching workshop participant Francesca – who has committed to stay with me this month along with another workshop participant to focus on our books – transform, and she talks about the possibility of moving to Bali. I see the wonder in world travel writer, Don George’s eyes. I hear the roosters calling us to wake up this morning. The water trickling from the ancient Subak to the river below. Bali is magic and I am woven into it, and I am grateful.

Another relationship has come and morphed into I do not know what. But I saw a vision of him floating down the river. Goodbye. Nice knowing you. Now that love has cleared out, and thank you Universe for creating the meetings, the possibilities, the moving away…I don’t quite get the lesson yet, but the short-lived relationship was amazing practice for getting clear on “what I want”, and when seeing that his way did not fit, simply opening my hand and letting him fly. A huge lesson.

And now? Back to the big fat book. Love of my life. I talked to my students about being in relationship to their writing as if the writing were an intimate partner. And so in honor of living what I teach. I’m here to say, I love you writing and I’m committing to more intimate time with you.

Starting Here Now.

]]>
1909
I Dreamed I Met the Pope https://robinsparks.com/uncategorized/i-dreamed-i-met-the-pope/ Thu, 21 Feb 2013 11:54:09 +0000 https://robinsparks.com/?p=1638 Dream Beach

Dreaming at Dream Beach

Feb. 19, 2013
Nusa Lumbongan, Indonesia

I dreamed 5 nights ago that I met the Pope.

He was walking down an avenue surrounded by many people. A group of men were with him, bald, wearing vestments. The Pope, kind, soft and warm, approached me and looking me in the eye said, “Will you prepare a meal and bring it to me? I am hungry.”

I said, “Yes, I’d be honored,” and I turned to go home to prepare a plate of lasagne (of all things). But as so often happens in dreams, I could not find the lasagne I thought was in the refrigerator. OK, there were a few bites left on a plate, but that would not do. And so I sat out to find a meal for the Pope.

I met some women in the street and told them of my dilemma and they handed me a plate of food, their food, and said, “Here give this to the Pope.” It wasn’t what I’d had in mind, but it would have to do. And then I began to look for him.

So much time had passed. Had I lost him? Where was He?

I had promised.

“He is up ahead,” some people said. “You can still find him.” I began to walk looking for the Pope carrying the plate of food in my hand.

And then I woke up.

No big deal right? That’s what I thought. Weird, I dreamed about the Pope.

I rarely remember my dreams – maybe one or two a year is my average – although I’ve recently made an effort to change that.

And so I casually mentioned the dream to another guest dining with me at Dream Beach – yes, that is the actual name of where I have holed up for 2 weeks on the island of Nusa Lubongan to write.

Tescha looked startled and proceeded to tell me that the Pope has been in the news lately. That he is going to step down. “You know about that right?” she said.

“What?” I said, goose bumps coming up all over my body.

It was the first I’d heard regarding the Pope.

I haven’t read the news since I left San Francisco on November 1. I have blocked it from coming up on the internet. I have been around no television sets for several months, and have no clue what is going on outside my very immediate world, per my choice, when I am in Asia. I am not Catholic and the Pope rarely, if ever, enters my consciousness.

What did it mean? I wondered. And why now? The fact that I’d dreamed about the Pope when he is in the international news gave me the heebie jeebies. The good kind. A dreamtime example of collective consciousness?

My personal dream translation:
I have received a call for home delivery. A big one. And the Pope is hungry.

THE LUTE WILL BEG

You need to become a pen
In the Sun´s hand.

We need for the earth to sing
Through our pores and eyes.

The body will again become restless
Until your soul paints all its beauty
Upon the sky.

Don´t tell me, dear ones,
That what Hafiz says is not true,

For when the heart tastes its glorious destiny
And you awake to our constant need
for your love

God´s lute will beg
For your hands.

Hafiz

food!

]]>
1638
High Pea Allen Times Day https://robinsparks.com/uncategorized/high-pea-allen-times-day/ Thu, 21 Feb 2013 09:16:40 +0000 https://robinsparks.com/?p=1625 Indonesian sunset

Indonesian sunset

I have come alone to an Indonesian island called Nusa Lumbongan for a writing retreat.

Why a solo writing retreat when I live on the bucolic island of Bali? Because in Ubud there is just so much life, friends and distraction, that I have to hide away at least once a year to focus on writing. I am most creative when still.

And so here I am on February 14, 2013 on an almost deserted island.

“High Pea Allen Times,” the waiter said placing a young coconut in front of me on my table just a few feet from the sea. “Excuse me, what did you say?” I asked. He said it again. “High Pea Allen Times.” What??? I thought. I didn’t want to ask him to repeat it a 3rd time. And then it came to me, “Ooooh, Happy Valentines?” I asked. “Yes,” he said with a sweet smile of connection.

The sand is ivory, the sea sapphire, and the air a heavy damp blanket.

All that is left to do is write.

Robin at Devil\’s Tear

]]>
1625
One is the Un-Loneliest Number https://robinsparks.com/uncategorized/one-is-the-un-loneliest-number/ https://robinsparks.com/uncategorized/one-is-the-un-loneliest-number/#comments Sun, 06 Jan 2013 13:22:46 +0000 https://robinsparks.com/?p=1604 January 3, 2013
Ubud, Bali, Indonesia

Back together again

My children and my former husband are boarding a plane in Bali at this very moment to return to California. As 2012 dovetails into 2013, I’m here to share with you something that is big for me. A long time dream of mine has come true.

My family is whole once again. Different and whole. We are one.

We were a unit decades ago and then something common happened. We grew in different directions, but instead of acknowledging what was happening and arranging paths that would serve all of us, it was as if a bomb exploded, leaving in its wake, a battlefield of injured and bleeding, with scars and pain that went on for far too long.

I’m here to tell you that, as of this past holiday, the war is over.

A few days before Christmas my 2 adult children, my daughter’s boyfriend, and my former husband arrived from the other side of the planet to the tiny island where I now live in Indonesia. We lived together in a foreign country with crazy drivers, rented motorcycles (oh yes, we were a motorcycle gang of 5 in Ubud, each with their own Honda…Did you see us weaving through cars all in a row?) My son surfed, we snorkeled in Lombok, relaxed in my jungle home, dined at new restaurants each night, attended a concert in Kuta to bring in the New Year where Michael Franti wrapped his arm around my son and danced with him. We ran and rode through the rain, waited out the rain, soaked up the sun when it made brief appearances, swam in the pool, surrendered to nearly daily massages, shot off fireworks over the rice paddies (“Man! You’d never be see anything like this in America!” my son exclaimed as the rockets did flare.) Laughter – lots of it. Accepting. Loving. Appreciating. Listening. Loving. Being.

We are family once again, sama sama in Balinese parlay, setting out into the world on separate paths, only now, with common heart. We’ve got each other’s backs and we respect our individual journeys. It is OK that we no longer meld in one direction as once we did. All faux pas, hurts and trespasses are forgiven and forgotten. Hoʻoponopono – I am sorry. Please forgive me. I love you. Thank you.

As expatriates, it comes with the territory that living far from “home” can result in not only physical but emotional distance from our families of origin. Healing at home and more time with our families is something I’m wagering that most of us long for. I know I do.

This concept of Oneness has been a biggie for me since I can remember thinking about these things. I was born into a family in California that believed that the human race is divided into 2 camps – the saved and the unsaved. I never could wrap my child heart around the fact that our neighbors not to mention foreigners – all those “unbelievers” out there, were, well, “bad”. They didn’t seem all that different from us. I sensed something in them that was beautiful and born of love – same as us. Seven years ago, I named my Turkish company – a business to place western tourists in real Muslim neighborhoods – Oneworld. And in retrospect, it seems that my whole life has been about scaling the metaphorical walls that keep us apart. It’s the reason I’ve spent the past decade not only meeting, but living among the Others on 4 continents in 7 countries.

Them as it turns out is Us – in business, politics, love, and life.

I have discovered that every single one of us – White, Black, Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Asian, South American, European… rich, poor, powerful, disenfranchised, young, and old…wants one thing more than any other. Love. Unconditional love.

We just go about trying to get it in different ways. If I can remember that every annoying behavior, every hurtful word or action is a cry for unconditional love, I can love each person as they are, including and most especially myself. When I offer unconditional love in the face of “off” behavior, so called perpetrators melt into the love that we, every single one of us, crave. And then they, make that we, no make that me, no longer need to hate, hurt, or separate.

Yep, this holiday was a big one.

I celebrated the coming and arrival of 12/21/12 – the end of that world as we knew it – with my Ubud tribe. All the discomfort, the pushing, the fear, the struggle, the pain, of this past decade, has been childbirth.

And life begins, as all we know, at home. It was essential to my own healing journey, that I set my familial relationships right before I could hope to heal anyone else.

Yesterday my former husband shared with me his experience of his mother and then his wife dying within 2 weeks of each other. Followed a few months later by his own near death – a sign from God he believes, that his life as he knew it then (60+ hour work weeks) was over. Within a year he moved to Mexico to do surgery among the Tarahumara Indians in the Copper Canyon of Mexico. He stops at the drug cartel blockades between Mexico and the USA as he drives supplies back and forth. (Another doctor who tried to outrun a blockade saw his wife shot to death) He flies in small planes to deliver care to those who cannot walk the many miles through the mountains to the tiny hospital. Amazingly, I had a vision many years ago in which I saw him doing exactly this, and I shared it with him then.

My daughter will go back to researching and writing public policy on America’s education system in the hopes of helping the children she so dearly loves. Her boyfriend will return to creating entertainment in Hollywood. And my son will go back to engineering weather satellites that open windows on our world illuminating the fact that we are, after all, Oneworld.

I will keep writing the stories that remind us how much more we are alike than different and I will continue bringing together teachers and students around the world. I’ll pick up again, what I began last summer as a Clarity Breathwork facilitator (my latest jet fuel for re-remembering Oneness).

There is most certainly a bend in the road ahead that’s not on any road map I am currently holding. I don’t need to know where the next turn is. With my family beneath me, love restored, forgiveness complete, I am now ready.

HAPPY NEW YEAR AND HEAPS OF UNCONDITIONAL LOVE
TO EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU!!!

[caption id="attachment_1598" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Lindsay and her boyfriend Vince with Bruce at Balinese performance"]

Ryan Surfing

leaf placed on the pillow of my room in Lombok

]]>
https://robinsparks.com/uncategorized/one-is-the-un-loneliest-number/feed/ 1 1604
Refugees – A True Story of Thanksgiving https://robinsparks.com/uncategorized/refugees-%e2%80%93-a-true-story-of-thanksgiving/ Mon, 23 Apr 2012 12:39:43 +0000 https://robinsparks.com/?p=1563 Istanbul, 2008

Sultanahmet Skyline

I am up hours before the sun speeding in a taxi to Ataturk Airport in Istanbul to assist Iraqi refugees who are headed to the country that I have voluntarily left behind.

Refugee: One who has crossed an international border and is unwilling or unable to return home because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.

If I count the rednecks in America including some who have been in political office recently…nah, I probably still wouldn’t qualify as a refugee although I often feel like one.

So who are these Iraqi refugees and why are they leaving, and why are they headed to the USA?

They are Chaldean Christians, one of the world’s oldest religions, in existence since the first century. They constitute what remains of the original, non-Arabic population of the Middle East. All use Aramaic, the language spoken by Christ. Despite successive persecutions and constant pressures, Christianity has continued in Iraq since brought there allegedly by Thomas the Apostle.

Before the toppling of Saddam Hussein, Christians and Muslims lived together peacefully in Iraq. Chaldean Christians were mostly middle and upper class professionals. But as a result of the US-led surge the struggle with al-Qaeda moved to the city of Mosul, the home of Chaldean Christians. In misplaced anger towards the West, Muslims have increased demands for Chaldeans to convert. Death threats, the looting of homes and businesses, kidnappings, bombings, and murder have become increasingly commonplace. This past March the Chaldean archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho of Mosul was abducted and murdered. Numerous priests and deacons have been tortured and shot or beheaded. And at least 40 churches have been burned to the ground.

I am here today because the United States requires an American be present at the airport for a final identity check of all political and religious refugees headed to the United States. The job pays little and costs a night’s sleep, but I come at least once per week because it pulls me from my ant hill existence and lands me in an experience that is raw and real.

Fifty adults and children stand in line at the check out counters – next to 2 bags per person, each weighing a maximum of 23 kilos, containing all the belongings they will take with them into their new lives. They have waited for months, some for years for this day. It is 5 AM. They’ve been here since 2 AM after a 6-hour bus ride from various satellite cities throughout Turkey. They are excited like children the night before Christmas.

Sweden has taken in the most Iraqi refugees — 40,000 – while the United States, which had only taken 1,608 by the end of 2007, has implemented a program for receiving up to 15,000 Iraqi refugees by the end of 2008. Around 500,000 people have fled Bush’s new Iraq and its violence, mass abductions and economic meltdown and most of them have been Chaldean Christians.

Arim standing with his family of five says, “My life is in Iraq, my work as an English teacher. My home. My friends. But lately they are making it impossible for us to stay. When my daughter entered university to become a teacher like me, she was told to convert to Islam or she would be kidnapped and raped. It was then that we knew we had to go.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to convert to Islam?” I ask.

“We would never do that. Our fathers, our grandfathers, their fathers, for 2000 years we have been there. We will die before turning our backs on our ancestors, our faith.”

Arim and his family

After hours in the checkout line shuffling through all the documents, checking passport photos with faces, police letters, sponsor letters signed, the group is ready to go.

But wait. There’s a glitch.

Someone notices that the photo on a security letter for one of the young men does not match the photo on his identity card. A government bureaucrat hundreds of miles away in the Turkish capital of Ankara apparently transposed photos on the documents by accident. Calls are frantically made, but government offices are not open at this early hour. The International Office of Migration officer here with me tells the family that she is sorry. They will not be able to go.

The mother collapses to the floor, pressing her hands together in the universal sign of prayer and begs, “Please, please, help us. We have no money.” The officer looks away, there is nothing she can do. The woman’s sons and husband try to console her, veiling their own disappointment behind cultural machismo. The IOM employee continues trying to call offices that are not yet open. She cannot find a solution.

After at least an hour of pleading and crying and desperate attempts to talk the IOM officer into letting them go, the family concedes that their worst fears have come true. The other passengers look on with a mixture of pity and relief as the family shuffles out of the airport, the father and son holding up the mother by her elbows, daughters trailing behind, heads hung low.

“Where will they go?” I ask the IOM personel. “I don’t know, “ she says her face a blank mask, and turns back to processing the remaining 44 refugees.

They are checked through, documents combed repeatedly at checkpoint after checkpoint, and then the only remaining gateway is passport control where once approved, the refugees will be granted entry to the other side – the side of the airport full of glittering duty free shops and restaurants, a sort of paradise before getting on a plane to heaven. Even I, without an airplane ticket, am relegated to watching from outside the pearly gates.

One by one each passes through the barrier after saying goodbye to family and friends on the other side that wave them on. Only one elderly woman remains, melded to a young adult man, her tear racked face glued to his, bodies entwined as if to imprint a memory.

I’d been looking away all morning gulping down rising emotions and silently repeating the mantra: be professional Robin, be professional. But it’s useless now. The tears spill in a torrent and I gulp down sobs that rise up in my throat. I watch this mother saying goodbye to a son she will likely never see again.

My son is in America and I am in Turkey. She will go to America and her son will remain in Turkey.

They pull apart as her name is called over the loudspeaker, and the old woman goes through the gate that separates her new life from the old one, turning to gaze one last time into the eyes of her son. At that moment she scans the crowd behind the barrier and our eyes meet. Unbelievably, she returns to where I stand, reaches over the barrier and wraps her arms around me. We stand there, a woman whose name I do not know, whose language I do not speak, holding each other. And in this moment she knows me, and I know her.

And then she is gone along with the others to America.

Today is Thanksgiving, and I will eat turkey in Turkey with American friends. I will celebrate Thanksgiving as never before, grateful that I am free to be here because I am an American. And I vow to never, ever complain about filing my taxes again. (A vow I have admittedly broken since writing this article).

Postnote: The family that was turned away at the airport in this article, boarded a plane for America 6 days later.

How You Can Help:

Church World Service (CWS)
www.churchworldservice.org

Domestic & Foreign Missionary Society (DFMS)
Episcopal Migration Ministries
www.episcopalchurch.org/emm/

Ethiopian Community Development Council (ECDC)
www.ecdcinternational.org

Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS)
www.hias.org

Bureau of Refugee Programs
Iowa Department of Human Services
www.dhs.state.ia.us/homepages/dhs/refugee

International Rescue Committee (IRC)
www.intrescom.org

Lutheran Immigration & Refugee Service (LIRS)
www.lirs.org

U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI)
www.refugees.org

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)
www.usccb.org/mrs

World Relief (WR)
www.wr.org

]]>
1563
Clicked My Heels 3 Times https://robinsparks.com/uncategorized/1479/ Tue, 13 Dec 2011 07:25:20 +0000 https://robinsparks.com/?p=1479 "> Been home less than 24 hours after flying half way around the globe - Turkey to Northern California...Read More.... ]]> Been home less than 24 hours after flying half way around the globe – Turkey to Northern California – in time to get my mother to the doctor for Round #3 chemotherapy treatment. …So grateful for the ability to get around the planet with such speed. And for the knowing that the all the world is home.

]]>
1479
Fear & Loathing in Fortaleza, Part 2 https://robinsparks.com/uncategorized/fear-loathing-in-fortaleza-part-2/ Tue, 01 Mar 2005 13:36:18 +0000 https://robinsparks.com/?p=2193 This article was inadvertently omitted when we changed website templates a few years ago. It belongs in the archived 2005 blog folder and should come after Fear & Loathing in Forgaleza Part 1. Until I sort out how to put it in its proper place, enjoy.


“A desert wind moans sadly. From somewhere within the wind comes the tinkly sound of tinsel.”
– Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Recap:
In last month’s issue of Escape Artist, I’d just joined four strangers in Fortaleza on a weekend expedition to explore the beaches of northeastern Brazil. Our ultimate destination was Jericoacoara. (a destination written about coincidentally in this month’s issue of Travel and Leisure Magazine 1/06). picture http://www.gonzo.org/books/fl/fl.asp?ID=1

Journey to NE Brazil’s Outback

“They had a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers….Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw either, and two dozen amyls.” – Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Alas, all we had were 3 cartons of Marlboros, a dozen bottles of water, and a six pack of beer. Including me, there were 2 Americans, a Frenchman, a Brasilera, a Brit and a Russian.

While it is true that Fortaleza has one of the sunniest climates in the world with year-round temperatures in the low to mid 80’s, it was the relentless wind and the sight of so many aging white men wearing bermuda shorts, on the arms of young brown women in tight short skirts and stacked heels, that gave me an intuitive ‘thumbs down’ for Fortaleza.

But I wanted to see what were rumored to be miles of milk white dunes piled up against the shallow ceruleon waters of Northeast Brazil.

Fortaleza’s modern high rise buildings were quickly replaced, as we drove out of the city into Brazil’s rural northeast, by dusty 3-block towns, which we sped through, slowing down to circumvent the occasional mule in the road. Things got progressively drier and the wind blew over the sertao with a vengeance bending everything in its path. Objects manmade and natural stayed low to the ground as if to hang on to the soil for dear life. Wind blew leaves and trash through mostly empty streets, making them feel like an Old Western, its residents in hiding in expectation of a shoot-out.

There was sustenance farming all around with residents of Indian and Portuguese ancestry. Slavery didn’t make it this far north.

With Lisbon only a 6-hour plane ride from the eastern-most tip of Northern Brazil, it figures that the immigrant population is largely Portuguese. Portuguese have returned in recent years in droves to buy up the land and property in Northeast Brazil – so much so that the Brazilian legislature is considering whether or not to limit the amount of property foreigners can own.

Are We There Yet?

Half a dozen times our French navigator, Jean, pulled up to the side of the road to ask a boy kicking a ball or pulling a mule with a rope, “Aonde Jericoacoara?” Each time, said boy would point and off we’d go, frequently finding ourselves back at the exact same spot again. Ted would wave his arm out the window from where they followed, signaling to Jean to pull over to the side of the road. They’d get of the cars and hold a heated private conference and off we’d go again.

I switched cars at some point and sat in the back of Lana and Don’s rented pickup. We followed the red jeep off the road and began scaling the side of a white powder sand dune. We floated down its surface as if downhill skiing atop fresh powder. In the valley below lay a large lagoon.

Suddenly the jeep stopped, its front wheels sinking into the sand. It rocked back and forth spraying sand into the air from its rear tires, and settled deeper and deeper into the muck.

“Keep going! I’m scared Bob!” Tania screeched. Suddenly we too were buried up to our rims.

“I told you so!” Tania, the Russian in our group yelled. “Why didn’t you listen to me!”

Bob looked at her deadpan and said “Shut up.” Tania crossed her arms over her ample chest and slid down into the front seat glaring out the window.

We scampered out to survey our predicament. The wind roared in our ears and sent sand stinging into our skin.

“The tide is rising!” Ted shouted. “We have to get out of here!” So with no Triple AAA around, Ted, Yvonne, and Jean lit cigarettes and then took turns pushing and revving the engine. Me? I did what any self-respecting photographer would do. I took pictures.

They clawed at the sand beneath the tires with bare hands. They wedged palm fronds and sticks under the tires and whatever else they could find, which wasn’t much on this lunar landscape. The jeep sunk deeper.

The water was rising half a foot every few minutes.

Huck Finn to the Rescue

I looked up to see a log raft gliding towards us from the other shore with a gaggle of young boys aboard. They came onshore dragging two long wooden planks through the sand, and then wedged them under the tires. You could tell they’d done this before.

Everyone pushed from the front and then the back, getting splattered in the process with black wet sand. The boys repositioned the planks under the tires and everyone pushed again. This went on for some time and the water crept closer.

We were beginning to think about calling the rental company with the bad news that our rental cars were under water, when the jeep kicked up onto the boards and backed onto the surface of the sand. Everyone jumped up and down cheering. Then we began on the white pickup truck. More pushing and mud splattering and hollering and loud revving and sand spitting, until finally the white truck was free as well.

The boys took their boards and clambered aboard their raft, drifting swiftly to the opposite shore.

Back on solid ground, a pickup truck appeared seemingly out of nowhere, and out stepped a man who looked like a pirate. His gray-streaked black hair was gathered in a ponytail, his facial features carved into angles as if carved by the wind and sand, a hoop in one earlobe, and he wore billowy pants, no shirt, and no shoes.

“This is Julio, owner of the infamous El Pirata (Pirate) nightclub in Fortaleza,” Ted said. Jean told him how the boys had rescued us. Julio said he knew the children and their families.

The others said they needed a drink and so they stepped into a tavern. Julio offered to take me on a tour of the land. The others said, yes, go, we will wait.

We whipped up and over the dunes alongside the ocean, leaving clouds of powdery fine sand in the air. Julio said that this land, all of it as far as we could see, was his. “In a manner of speaking,” he added. He explained that he has purchased as much of it as he can with the proceeds from his nightclub, El Pirata. “What will you do with the land?” I asked. “Nothing,” he said. “I bought it so that no one can develop it. It is the only way to save the turtles, the animals, the plants native to the area, and the way of life for these people.”

Julio took me back to where the others waiting, and he sailed away over the waves of dunes.

We drove through several more small towns, on mile after mile of desolate road, and were never entirely sure we were headed in the right direction. Ted talked and talked about how he had plans to dredge a harbor for the big yachts on one of these shores.

I asked him, “Have you checked into the legality of this?” He indicated, that no, he had not, but that it wouldn’t be a problem. “I have connections,” he said. “You know, guys like Julio.” We stopped for lunch at a lagoon to eat and drink caipirinhas. Windsurfers flew across the tops of the white caps outside while we ate feijada, rice, and picanha.

My B.S. detector was on red alert. I asked Ted, a stocky man with a strong Brooklyn accent, who seemed to be more working class than investment banker, how he and Don, who they both said was a designer of yachts from London (who asked to see the wine list at every meal in this beer-only drinking country) met. “It’s not important how we met,” Ted said. “Well, it is part of the story,” I countered. Don said, “We met at a convention in California.”

Uh huh. Don might have been a designer of yachts, but Ted was no investment banker, and this yacht harbor? Right.

Oz

I was starting to think that we were just going to keep on driving forever and ever when Jean announced, “We’re here!” We roller-coastered up and down sand dunes and then idled at the top of the tallest one. There it was. The white dunes met a sea of green so vast and smooth that we couldn’t see where it ended and the sky began.

Nestled between the white dunes and the sea below, the beach town of Jericoacoara glinted in the sun. Now this was the Northeast Brazil of the tourist brochures! The land of the dunes, where the pull of the tide sucks the sand out to sea, only to be blown back into piles upon the shore by gale force winds, sculpting the sand into an ever-shifting lunar sandscape.

Jericoacoara is reputed to be an oasis of kite surfing, fresh lobster, and snow boarders who slalom down steep faces of what look like God-sized piles of salt.

Also called “Jeri”, the town is an oasis of car-free alleys and lanes of packed sand. Of cute boutiques where you take off your shoes when you enter because the floors are piled several inches deep in sand. But most importantly, it’s where hundreds arrive daily to partake in the sunset ritual atop the 100 foot high Dune of the Sun.

Once we had arrived, I quickly lost the others, grabbed my camera and joined dozens of strangers to shuffle zombie-like through deep sand up the steep side of the dune. We stood at the top in a direct line of vision with the horizon. The dune under our feet turned from beige to rose, to a deep mediterranean terra cotta.
The sun grew fat like a ripe pumpkin and sat, wavering on the edge of the sea.

A girl stood in front of me holding her sarong out at her sides, the wind whipping it in the air. A horse galloped below on the shoreline. The fishermen on the jigandas dropped their nets and stood to face the sun. A kite surfer glided past the glowing globe framing it briefly in a transparent sail. The wind stopped. Then reversed. Waves stood up as if confused. Then the shimmering now squished pumpkin rolled off the edge of the sea and disappeared.

We descended the dune together in silence as the sky turned indigo. The twang of a one-stringed berimbau sent out waves of its own. Jericoacoara lit up and twinkled below. Soft strains of Bossa nova filled the night.

My Fear and Loathing of Northeastern Brazil had gone down with the sun.

I thought about Ted and about Don and about the yacht harbor they dreamed of building. And I thought about their visions of yachts pulling into a harbor, of passengers stepping onto a pier at the foot of a resort that they themselves had created. Who knows? I thought. If they build it, maybe people will come. I hoped not.

I looked for my fellow merry pranksters and found them doing what they had done for most of the past two days – smoking cigarettes and getting smashed. Jean had disappeared and the women were planning what to wear to dinner that evening.

I told them that I was going to remain in Jeri for another day, another sunset. And that I would take the bus home.

I’d found my Field of Dreams. And I hoped that they’d find theirs, preferably somewhere else.

Epilogue: Back in Fortaleza three mornings later, Fortaleza’s bright white sunlight was softer, and I discovered a different Fortaleza than the one with which I’d become acquainted. The seawall was alive with bicyclists, joggers, chatters, walkers, and they were all ages. Mothers stretched their hamstrings before setting off on a brisk walk pushing strollers. Old men, and I’m talking 90’s here, jogged, lifted weights on the beach, and people everywhere chatted socially in small groups.

Fortaleza felt all warm, and fuzzy and family-like, as opposed to the hunter prey-like ambience I’d sensed here under the cover of darkness. The wind machines had not yet started up and a gentle sea lapped at a long crescent shoreline.

]]>
2193