Staff Wanderings and Ponderings

By: Deshka Foster, NWL Staff

Upon returning home from leading trips at Northwaters a few summers ago, instead of commencing my junior year of college, I packed my backpack and boarded a plane for Nairobi. I had decided to take a leave of absence from Stanford University and volunteer for a small, not-for-profit organization in northern Tanzania. The organization is called Students for International Change and offers HIV/AIDs education, awareness campaigns and testing in rural communities.

The previous winter when in the midst of researching possible abroad opportunities, I had come across the following quotation in a book of poetry:

“I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world.

I may not ever complete the last one, but I give myself to it”.

–Rainer Maria Rilke

I had already checked out the University study-abroad programs, but was not interested because I did not want to do “America in Paris” or “America in Santiago”; to take Stanford classes with a bunch of Stanford kids in a different country. I was rather looking for a meaningful experience that was separate from the American college scene to which I had become accustomed. Rilke’s words speak to this desire, reflecting on a human inclination to explore the world through a service project committed to making it a better place for those who are less fortunate. The effort to create positive change in the world and the experience of leaving behind what is familiar and comfortable, give rise to an opportunity for immense growth and learning.

I chose to do HIV/AIDS work because for as long as I can remember I have known that I wanted to become a doctor and work in international health. This inspiration stems from my belief that medicine is the field through which I will be able to offer the most to the world; caring for struggling abroad communities that lack the resources and expertise for proper healthcare. However, upon coming to Stanford, I quickly discovered that the actual process of becoming a doctor is more selfish than this philanthropic aspiration. I craved an experience that would allow me to get back in touch with my initial inspiration and to experience first hand the things that I had been writing college papers about. I chose to volunteer for Students for International Change because I was impressed by this organization’s commitment to excellence, with a combined focus on prevention and treatment and a very progressive approach to educating rural communities about HIV/AIDS. Excellence is a term that is frequently employed in the Northwaters/Langskib vocabulary. It speaks about the importance of doing things that you find meaningful and especially about caring about the way you do the things that you do.

For the next four months, I lived as a rural Tanzanian and taught about HIV and AIDS at primary and secondary schools, medical clinics and to communities, basically to everyone and anyone who was willing to listen. It was one of the most powerful experiences in my life: eye-widening, saddening, frustrating at times and incredibly rewarding at others. The first village I lived in was about halfway up Mount Meru. We lived in a little cement shack with a family of 11 give or take a few random neighbors, cows, stray dogs, goats and chickens. The eldest brother moved out of his bed in order to let another volunteer and I sleep there and was sleeping in the family’s “duka”, a small shop on the roadside that sells soap, matches, chai and Tanzanian pancakes. Although I had studied a bit of Swahili, it turned out that this family only spoke the local dialect, KiMaasai, making communication a serious challenge.

Every morning we were awakened around six by the eldest sisters, as they hauled buckets of water from the stream in a canyon below. Then we walked about an hour down the dusty dirt road (there are only two paved roads in the whole country of Tanzania) to a primary school. Many of the schools buildings were missing doors and windows and some children could only attend one or two days of class a week depending on their family’s needs. Some days there would be a governmental testing, church events for the community or simply students would not show up, but we would stay there for most of the day and teach whenever we could.

We begin our instruction with basic biology and immunology, then the progression of HIV in the human body, transmission and prevention and finally teach about HIV testing and how to live with and care for people who are HIV+. After five weeks of teaching in the school and community, our students possess accurate knowledge about HIV; small group of them have been trained to be peer-educators and continue educating at the school when we are gone; many of the dukas in the village have started to sell condoms and the people we meet along the road know our names and have taught us to great them in KiMaasai. Although HIV is a complicated health crisis and offering awareness campaigns in one ward of villages at a time will hardly immediately eliminate HIV from sub-Saharan Africa, I believe that our efforts are effective and genuinely excellent. I am incredibly grateful for all of the support I got for this incredible opportunity and will be returning to Tanzania as a volunteer coordinator for Students for International Change this coming summer.

If you have any questions, comments or would like information about Students for International Change, check out our website: www.sichange.org.

By Jodi Browning, NWL Staff

I’m coming to the end of the portage trail. I’ve been catching glimpses of the lake for about 200 meters—it appears as a glimmer through the trees. It’s a brief, unattainable vision. In my exhaustion, I am considering plowing through the trees ‘off trail’ to access the water, but I still hear the falls and rapids and know that it’s too soon. The ground is slippery from yesterday’s downpour and the woods are thick with deadfall. I’m better off on the trail. Moving forward for what seems like ages, I am mesmerized as I watch my feet and my shadow against the ferns. The branches and leaves reach out to me. I glance up from under the tip of my canoe. I can see a distinct opening—the edge of the trees, open water! At last the falls are behind me.

I pound through the last stretch of the trail. With the end in sight, my body is rebelling in anticipation. It wants this portage to be over now, not in 50 meters. I keep pushing forward. As trip leader, I started out on the portage first, but I’m only about two minutes ahead of the participant behind me; the rest of the group is close behind him. He had caught up with me on a break about 15 minutes earlier. We chatted briefly (and breathlessly) about negotiating the stretch of knee-deep mud and a downed pine tree. “Did you go over or under it?” I’d asked. “The mud or the tree?” he smiled. We laughed about the mosquitoes on our forearms—the ones we couldn’t swat away for fear of displacing the precarious balance of our bow-heavy canoes. I told him about tripping on a tree root (which turned out to be my right foot) and about surprising a ruffed grouse just before the stretch of mud (I thought the loud beating was my own heart until it flew up into a hemlock). I left him resting on a rock drinking water, the bow of his canoe perched securely in the crook of an ancient cedar. “Almost there!” I called behind me as I continued on my way. I’m not sure I believed it either.

There is a steep slope as the trail empties into the lake. One final hurdle before the end. I start my decent. My legs are starting to feel like jelly, my shoulders not approving of the weight adjustment. “Almost there,” I think. This time, believing it.

Finally, I’m at the water’s edge. My instinct is to throw the canoe off my shoulders and let it drop to the ground. I want to escape from it and be free. I want to collapse into the lake, letting the water wash over me. I want to float away with the lightness of my body and this thought.

Instead, I gather the last bit of strength I can summon. I walk into the shallow water, heave the canoe up and roll it to the left, turning my body and letting it land gently on my thighs. With a final sigh and release, I lower it smoothly into the calm water. I stand up straight and look around. The lake is pristine. A merganser with a long tail of chicks glides casually by—my presence not disturbing her. A white-throated sparrow sings its familiar song. A cool breeze rises from the lake, gently brushing the sweat from my forehead.

I’m here, and realize I’ve been here all along—absorbed in the mud, awakened by the grouse, accompanied by the ferns, made conscious by the falls, and supported by this group of young people. I no longer want to float away, I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be.

“Almost there!” A familiar voice calls from behind me at the top of the slope. I smile and help him down with his canoe. “You are here,” I reply. He looks out at the lake. The merganser has circled back and the breeze rises gently again.

By: Tyler Hargreaves, NWL Staff and Alumni

We left the campsite on the last set of the river and paddled through a light rain to where the Dumoine meets the Ottawa. The last ten days on the river had been filled with great adventure, grinning amusement and grim adversity. And with magic. At fifteen, getting cut free from ordinary life for three weeks doesn’t always sound like a win-win offer. Yet the mood that hung over the canoes, and was pulled reluctantly along with us to the end of the river, was one of solemn resignation. Luke, our leader turned and said “The land’s crying because we’re leaving it.”

On the face of it, it sounded like a somewhat ridiculous proposition. One which aimed at mitigating the assault our morale was suffering from both the weather and the fact that soon we’d spend our days somewhere rain wouldn’t bother us much. But it still felt right. The land was crying because we were leaving. For the last little while, we’d formed a happy partnership the land and us. We set out to discover and enjoy it, and it not only made us welcome but awed us with grace and beauty. It made sense that the sadness felt reciprocated.

After crossing the Ottawa, we made our way up to the baseball field that was our pickup point. We made camp there only steps from an unfamiliar highway and a gas station selling mediocre sandwiches. You wouldn’t mistake that spot for anywhere else we had spent time at since leaving basecamp weeks earlier.

We spent our last night on that gravel field in an emotional denouement. Despite its bland man-made origins, the baseball diamond manifested a special energy while we occupied it. The excitement and danger of the trip had dissipated, but in its place arose the camaraderie of those who have endured hardship and joy together. We sat around the fire savouring each other’s company and a last evening of sharing jokes, retelling stories, and binding ties.

More than ten years later, the diamond is a jewel of my youth. And as I’ve slid along the curves of time, I’ve learnt that the diamond won’t stay safely locked in the memories of that summer. It won’t because the foggy geography of my fifteen year-old mind has given way to a breezy familiarity with the roads and places of Northern Ontario. The diamond sits on the highway that runs between Temagami and Ottawa, my hometown. I’ve driven by it countless times. It sits only three hours from my front door. And I’ve returned since, either leading my own group of fifteen year olds or picking up someone else’s. But the flawless diamond that I reveled on at fifteen has disappeared, replaced by a forgettable, dull grey, small-town Ontario baseball field. Passing it now, I look over the wilting fence and dusty spot where I think our fire burnt and wonder if those memories are tied to real events or just part of a vivid imagination. Either way, as they slip backwards and shimmer with time, I remain grateful.

By: Shane Levine, NWL Staff

I had long been pondering the possibility of taking a year off from school. When CG called to offer me a job working post season at NWL, I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity, so I submitted my leave of absence forms to school, relegated my books to a dusty shelf, and headed up to NWL for three and half months.

Soon I was waste deep in moose muck with a group of mischievous Vikings. Later I paddled the Dumoine with an outstanding group of young adults, and managed to swamp on the first torrential wave train (or was it a gigantic hole?) of Big Steel with Forest Jarvis. During post season I Zenned out while staining the dining hall at Northwaters, and had a jolly good time tripping with a number of school groups. But all too soon it was time to leave NWL and head back to Seattle.

When I got home, the question inevitably arose, “What should I do now?” For a few days I felt bored and discouraged; maybe I shouldn’t have taken a year off after all. Luckily, I received an E-mail from my best friend Michael in Israel. His plans to join the Israeli military were delayed, so he had some extra time on his hands. He suggested that we hike the Shvil Yisrael: a trail stretching from the northern to the southern tip of Israel. “Let’s do it!” I proclaimed, and before I could say “peace out” I was on a flight to Israel.

Twenty hours and eleven time zones later I arrived at the Tel Aviv airport with boots on my feet and an enormous Arc’Teryx pack on my back. Michael and I didn’t waste time; we went shopping, divided up the gear, and hopped on a bus heading to the northern tip of Israel. As I stepped down from the air-conditioned bus and into the blazing hot sun, I felt the need to evoke Lao Tzu’s immortal aphorism: The journey of a thousand miles (in our case, six hundred) begins with a single step. And with that, I took my first step.

Sadly, my lofty feelings of inspiration began to wane as bulbous blisters broke out on my feet and severe soreness set in. At the end of the first day, I unclipped my pack and collapsed onto the ground like a rickety house of cards. I then realized that the trail was going to be much harder than I had anticipated. But each day we grew a little bit stronger.

On day six, we started off hiking through a picturesque canyon filled with thick vegetation. For a while we cheerfully herded a group of cows (later dubbed “the cow brigade”) through the canyon. But then it started to rain and the trail led us into an extremely muddy stream. After about two hours of slogging through ankle-deep mud, we encountered a quivering bush, at which point we stopped and waited for a big friendly cow to emerge. But, to our horror, out came a monstrous beast-pig with menacing tusks and rippling muscles!

“Dude! It’s a hog!” Michael whispered frantically. I froze, and my heart started thumping wildly in my chest. The boar also froze, but then started thundering right towards us. It charged into a patch of bushes and continued to blaze its warpath in our direction. I thought that the rampaging hog was about to slaughter us both. But the beast just ran past us and disappeared. Apparently, it was more scared of us than we were of it!

After the hog incident, the rain started to dissipate and we came to the end of the canyon. There stood a mighty pillar of rock, which humbled us both. Deep down I knew that it had been standing eons before I came into existence, and that it would continue to stand long after I was gone—regardless of whether the hog had taken me out or not. I realized this, of course, when there were no ferocious oinkers in sight. If another beast had appeared, I’m sure that my delicate existential insight would have been promptly replaced by brute fear.

But the realization lost its oomph anyways as we trekked 20 grueling miles that day. The sweat and tears were well worth it though, for in the end we arrived at a beautiful town called Tiberius, where we rested the following day. In the morning I awoke to a box of pastries that Michael, in all his sainthood, had taken the liberty to purchase while I dozed. I bit into a chocolaty, frittery delight and was instantly transported into another dimension. The rainstorms, the mud, and long days on the trail magnified the pleasure I derived from a simple pastry into a near religious experience.

About three weeks and a million burnt calories later, we arrived at the Negev Desert, which is one of the most physically empty, but spiritually full places I have ever had the privilege of traveling through. In the beginning we had to carry two days worth of water (about ten Nalgenes each) and six days worth of food. We climbed into, and out of, enormous craters, and did a fair amount of “carbolet”—walking along the narrow tops of giant fins of rock that usually constitute the perimeter of a crater. We averaged around twenty miles a day in the desert, thanks to the previous four hundred miles that pounded us into shape.

Needless to say, the Negev was extremely demanding. But underneath the toil was deep beauty; everyday was filled with countless panoramic views and immense skies. And just as the terrain itself was essentially empty, at the end of the day, my mind was similarly quite empty. Most people treat the idea of losing one’s mind as a bad thing, but I’ve found that when I lose mine I don’t miss it very much.

After about ten days, we popped out of the harsh mountainous landscape and onto the shores of the Red Sea; the hike was over. We gave a hoot and holler, jumped into the sea, and basked in a few moments of unpolluted pride. “Well, that was cool. What next?” I said in jest.

The most fitting synopsis of my adventure as a whole—and perhaps of the adventure in general—comes from the great nature writer Colin Fletcher:

There is nothing like a wilderness journey for rekindling the fires of life. Simplicity is part of it. Cutting the cackle. Transportation reduced to leg- or arm-power, eating irons to one spoon. Such simplicity, together with sweat and silence, amplify the rhythms of any long journey, especially through unknown, untattered territory. And in the end such a journey can restore an understanding of how insignificant you are—and thereby set you free.