When the Almond Tree Blooms

The other night, I had the pleasure to watch an excellent movie called 'The Edge of Heaven'. The film that takes place in Germany and Turkey; I bring it up not because I want to write a review, but because the movie got me thinking about a past life I once had. From September 2002 until August 2003, I lived, studied and traveled in Turkey. I spent most of my time in Istanbul, a beautiful, ancient, crowded, intense, and overwhelming city. In my daily life here in U.S., I don't often think of my year in Turkey, and my time there holds this strange place in the chronology of my life. That time is strangely disconnected with the rest of my life: I never speak Turkish (I've forgotten most of what I learned there) and rarely meet Turks and there is no one from that experience that I encounter in my daily life. Since watching the film, memories from my life in Turkey have flooded back into my mind. I think about catching a bus on a cold fall night on my way back home from...

Last weekend, I was going to write something about rain. On Saturday night and early Sunday morning, we had some rain here in the Bay Area. What began as a reflection about rain's significance in a time of drought became a much wider inquiry into climate change, the future of humanity and the planet, and our role in the current crises we face. I like to think of myself as someone who works on the land. I coordinate a school garden program and grow food with inquisitive, sometimes exhausting but ultimately inspiring elementary age kids. I've been doing this work for over four years, and since then, I've become more and more in tune with the workings of nature. Farmers, many have written, are on the front lines of climate change. Across the world, those of us who grow food from the land are facing changing weather patterns which is making agriculture more difficult. Unlike most farmers, I don't rely on what I grow either for sustenance, like the campesinos I had...

I felt a surprising surge of emotion when I read yesterday evening that the leftist FMLN Party in El Salvador had claimed victory in that country's presidential election. Why should I care about an election in a tiny little Central American country? My interest in El Salvador--and in Central America as a region--goes beyond just its' pupusas and fine coffee. For many years, I knew little about El Salvador, but in the years I've spent working in the East Bay, I've met many Salvadorans and became interested in their stories and the history of their small nation. When I decided to travel to Central America a little over a year ago, I had my sights set on spending some time in El Salvador, so I delved into a few books about the history of that country's civil war. It became clear to me that the FMLN had waged a just guerilla war against a brutal, repressive right-wing regime for nearly a decade. It always seemed sad to me that after the Peace Accords in 1992?, the...

It's a windy, cold afternoon here in Oakland, and I am looking out my not-so-clean window at the vacant yard that once belonged to my neighbors. Yet another victim of foreclosure, they moved out a few weeks ago, taking with them their assorted vehicles, weight set and junk that once crowded the small, concrete back patio. Sometimes loud and raucous, always lively, I will miss them and the little piece of Central America they brought to the neighborhood. I recall one summer afternoon when I dozed off in my backyard to the soothing sounds of their Guatemalan marimba music. Now, it's just an empty space, one of many in this city. Bad news is not hard to find these days. Sixteen teachers at the elementary school where I work got pink slips yesterday. Families and staff are concerned what will happen to the school. Many of the dedicated educators who have served there now find their future uncertain. I am lucky that the grant money that supports my position as a school garde...

As I spend a quiet Saturday reading, writing and cooking beans, my mind drifts back to the month I spent in Nicaragua. I've lost track of how much time it's been since I returned from Central America, but I know I've been back for well over a month. At work, people are counting down the weeks before our spring break--four more to go. I am thinking ahead of projects to do in the school garden where I work once spring arrives, which here in the Bay Area will be soon. I am also thinking of another school garden project--the one in Lagartillo, the community in Nicaragua where I spent a month studying Spanish this past winter vacation. When I was in Lagartillo, some of the community elders spoke of starting a garden project at the school. A nonprofit organization that supports initiatives for women and children in Nicaragua, Project Sonrisas (http://www.projectsonrisas.org/) is working with the community in Lagartillo to help make the project a reality. To quote the Pro...

I have laryngitis and can't talk today. I had to take a sick day since if I can't talk, I can't teach, especially to large groups of sixth graders. Which is disappointing, since I really did want to work today... Since I can't talk, I figure I can write. It's been a while since I've posted anything on this blog. It's been a few weeks since I returned from Nicaragua and I've slid back into my routine here: work, King's Boxing Gym, cooking, hanging out. After a January that was more like April in terms of weather, winter is back, and I'm feeling the cold here in my drafty, unheated house on 27th Avenue. We're getting rain though, so I can't really complain, and the plants are happy. The news here is of recession, of course, and it's usually not positive. I think we would all like it if things were easier. But here we are, and perhaps we can find something good in all this. Hard times inevitably draw people together, with less, ...

Hi Folks, I'm back in Oakland, I arrived late last night. I'm tired. I posted photos on my Picasa photo page. Come take a look: http://picasaweb.google.com/rfadam/QueLindaEsNicaragua# Last time I posted, I was about to leave for the Las Penitas beach not far from Leon. The short trip turned into more of an adventure than I had imagined. I took a bus from the centro near my hostel to a small mercado in the Subtiava barrio , where I boarded the bus to Las Penitas. There was a really annoying drunk on the bus--at 10 AM in the morning, he and his two buddies were already out of the minds from cheap aguardiente . He kept asking me over and over whether I was going to surf at the beach, so eventually I started ignoring him. The road to Las Penitas, like most roads in Nicaragua, is undergoing repairs and improvements, and on one of the spots under construction, our bus broke an axel. We all got off and waited for the next bus, which came, already full, in about ten m...