LOVE

Tonight the weather in Baltimore is perfect. I took a walk along the waterfront this evening, reminiscent of the manifold footsteps I'd already taken along it, especially in recent months.

I just returned from 23 days on the road and have spent the past three days re-integrating myself. While travelling, I decried the dysfunction and dirt of my adopted hometown of almost 9 years, and drank in the physical beauty, healthy sense of community, wholeness of personal relationships, found in the small towns and communities we passed through.

I am revisited tonight with the realization that I love Baltimore.

Nina defines love as the feeling that exists naturally between human beings, unsullied by greed, fear, pain, jealousy and other such marvels.

On Monday, I went sailing with the Hood Kidz (See note: TenderBridge). Arriving one hour late, I was just in time to help ground, put away, and take down the sails of the boats. The boys were unruly, difficult to "collect", constantly poking at any chink of weakness in each other, and I inadvertantly donated about $40 in cash, prey to hood kidz who were able to reach slender arms through a crack in my car window to unlock the door while I was helping to store the boats they had left out after using them. Welcome home!

Today, I went sailing with a different set of kids, this time from Perkins Homes, a public housing neighborhood just west and north of Fells Point. It was like night and day. The kids were kids. They helped each other, they comforted each other when they were afraid, they responded to our requests, they put away all the boats and did not play until given the go ahead that all was clean. Noel Acton, the man behind the TenderBridge, described it wonderfully in an email (read at bottom of this post). Public housing kids live in poverty, but these kids had some adult who was able to navigate the beaurocratic red tape and secure a home through the public support system. Mr. Noel relayed that when he went to pick them up today, they were all waiting together as a group, ready to go. The kids from Monday are literally collected singly from the streets just north and east of Patterson Park - a dilapidated, neglected, decaying neighborhood littered with more abandoned buildings than inhabited ones. In another way to look at it, "no one cares." We immediately feel the difference in these barometers, these children.

The only difference is LOVE. The LOVE that makes or breaks a child. Makes or breaks a human being. I confided to Mr. Noel about my inadvertant donation that I was not aware I made until I was home on Monday. (Me: All my cash is gone! Lady: Where did it go? Me: That's a very interesting question!) Just before we left today, he said that on Monday we would round up the usual suspects. I was under the presumption that if you play with wolves, you are going to get bit, and he could see that in my reaction. But he said, "I don't want them to think that it's ok to do it."

Here lies my realization. This is why I love Baltimore City. A city of people like Mr. Noel who take such ownership over the deficits in our society.

It's not that folks from my travels don't care. Surrounded by love, they are too far removed to feel the urgency of decay. This is why I live here. My city.

And me, I'm finally learning to sail!

--------------------------------
Noel Acton wrote an insightful email to us. I share it here.

Hi everyone -

Sailing is off to a great start with our usual kids from the area north of Patterson Park, and this year we added some kids from the Perkins Public Housing Project for the Thursday crew. Two of the kids in the Monday group are refugees from Congo who I felt the program would help them socialize in the community easier. It turned out that they are pretty well socialized. The difference between them and our usual cohort is astounding. While they were born in the Congo and English is their second if not third language they are far ahead of the other kids in education, vocabulary, language skills, knowledge, social skills, and motivation. The primary reason is these two have both a functioning mother and father. It really pointed out to me how deprived our hood kids are and how much they have missed in life. While they are generally some of the most deprived and at-risk kids in the city there are still some even worse off that I feel no matter how much we do our efforts will not help.

One of the reasons the time we spend with our kids is so helpful for them is that they have such limited exposure to a world outside the hood and to caring sensible adults. My approach is that each kid is going to be a little better off in life for each positive experience we can provide them. While we would like to think we can help them see themselves being successful in life, it may come down to just providing them a memory of someone believing in them. Perhaps it will be when they are locked up in jail and saying to themselves "Mr. Noel told me I can do better than this with my life."

Sometimes things can be discouraging, but then one of the kids will do something that will really show you how much of a difference you have made in their lives. The other important thing our volunteers do is make the larger community aware of the difficulties our kids face every day of their lives. Thank you all for your interest and support for the kids.

Mr. Noel
Director
The TenderBridge

Adirondacks

We take the ferry across Lake Champlain to the Adirondacks, NY State!

This time, we leave at 4 pm and Evains is awake for the ride!

And set up camp at Poke-O-Moonshine, the high peaks region of the Adirondacks. Mosquitos were OUT in vengeance. We went on a quest for insect repellent and firewood and had a campfire tonight.

We awoke in the morning to a hike UP the 1 mile vertical trail up to the high peaks from our campsite.

A break along the way...

OOH! But was it worth it!

...and blueberries?!




Happy blueberry faces on the way down.

We had been driving and moving around EVERY NIGHT so I promised we would settle in one spot for two nights. This spot turned out to be Moffitt Beach in the Southern Adirondacks. We arrived and set up just in time for a walk along the beach under the full moonlight...

The next day, we went rafting on the Sacadanga River. It was great to get in a river, as lake water was starting to feel kind of like warm bath water.

...then stopped at the playground in Spectator, NY, the town next to the Moffit Beach campground and scored pit food signaled by pit smoke.

Final morning out of the Adirondacks! Our farewell at our breakfast place.

Burlington

Escape from the funky-ness of Montreal, but also from the haze of cigarette smoke which seemed ubiquitous. Why is it that culturally, funkiness and smoking happen to go hand in hand? Nature (clean air!) and fuddiness...
...We take a deep, clean, breath as we enter Burlington, Vermont and visit Michael, Valerie, and family.

They live on the skirts of Lake Champlain, and the ENTIRE FAMILY, Valerie, Madeline (5), Henry (5), Isaac (2), Ui-Seng (8), and Evains (7) traveled by bike from their home to the lake for a quick swim before dinner. Choosing to live green....

This is the front porch of the Front Porch Forum (see my links)

Montreal - Words

We arrived into Quebec Welcome Center and everything seemed different - because of language. But even the roads were different! Street signs. We stayed in a hostel again. A really funky one. It seemed everything in Montreal was slightly funky...


The highlight of our stay was the Fete de Rire that was taking place at the intersections around the Berri-UQAM Metro Station several blocks up from Vieux-Montreal, where our hostel was.
Fete de Rire Mascot

Evains tries his hand at acting during street storytelling. What do you think of his leading lady!?

Both kids attempt street-wise acrobatics.



The funkiest part of the festival, however, was definitely the packing tape structure in-process, accented by blacklight, underlined by trance music. Complete with extra rolls of packing tape and climbing children.

The next day we saw LOTS of rain so sought the shelter of the BioDome! The perfect artificial climate controlled earth complete with four different ecosystems. All on a rainy day!




A large part of what endears Montreal to me is the language. Lovers of language among you will know what I mean! There is something implicitly romantic about someone speaking the language of their culture, their land, their people, their ancestors. I've been romanced by this allure many times in my travels... !!

It is the language that changes everything about Montreal - not the least among the quaintness of its infrastructures, the microcosm of all the world's non-european french speakers... What I realized today as announcements 'pour la prochaine stationne' spilled over the speakers on the Metro is that I can't SEE the spoken words in my head. The language has no life in my consciousness. This is intensely beguiling. It drives a desire to engineer an excuse to spend one continuous month (minimum) in Montreal to allow these words to germinate in my fertile mind.

Aaah! C'est la joie de vivre.

Footnote: I can't let this go by without mention of the woman I exchanged words with today in town from Alberta for the PowWow. Let us not forget the First Nations peoples connection to the land - pre-Quebecois.

Lake Ontario

The next leg of our trip leaving Niagara Falls consisted of travelling around the west and north of Lake Ontario until we reached Montreal - our target destination. The plan was to camp and swim as much as possible.

The first night, we scored a municipal campsite outside of Toronto and took the subway downtown and the ferry to Centre Island where we heard there was a swimming beach:

Views of Toronto from the Island and ferry on our way back.

The next night we made it Prince Edward County - a concentration of islands on the north side of Lake Ontario. We were hoping to score a campsite at the SandBanks, a provincial park well known for their white sands beaches. Alas! We were too late and the provincial park was WELL-KNOWN. So we hunted around for a private camp park. Not too bad, we were able to get a camp spot on the lake.

with a playground!

It's too bad that we didn't get to camp at Sandbanks, which I expect to be similar to Assateague Island with waterfront beach side camping - without the mosquitos, horseflies, and searing sun! - But we were safe and had a nice place to sleep. We should have gotten up and out earlier. Flexibility is the mantra of the road. Without it, the frustration would render travel pointless. The compromise reached was to give up the gorgeous sand beach, but the kids got a playground, and I was still set up right on the lake.

The next morning, we DID get up and out early and was rewarded with the sunrise on a small ferry that was part of rt 33 in Prince Edward County!

Ui-Seng was out to see it....

Evains, on the other hand... was sleeping in the car.

Niagara Falls

We stayed at the Rainbow Hostel Canada side for $5o per night. I guess we could have gotten a hotel for a few dollars more, but I made an executive decision; Perhaps a lifestyle one. We had our own room with two bunks, a shared kitchen, deck, and communal activities with new friends. It would have been just fine on the comfort level exept for the first night, which was so hot: A family of four with two very young children (2 and 4!) in the room next to us left one night early because they couldn't take the heat. They're from Norway - go figure! But we withstood the heat assisted by lots of mist, compliments of the Niagara, and the next two seemed not so bad in comparison!

The foyer lobby of the Rainbow Hostel.

Note the shine of sweat on Ui-Seng's face!

Evains does not seem to lack for sleep despite the heat!

Basketball with Aussies Daniel and Gavin.

New friend Gavin from Australia.

New Friends Daniel (trying to be short) from Australie and Esch from Toronto working the desk. Ui-Seng observed that because she does not smoke, that's why she has beautiful skin!! (Note Evains trying to be tall - and wide?)

We walked the waterfront promenade down from the hostel. This was our first view of the Falls. Gorgeous!

The Maid of the Mist.

Journey Behind the Falls.

The force of the Falls creates Class VI rapids downstream which we see along the Whitewater Walk.

We head north to the Butterfly Pavilion and Botanical Gardens for the afternoon.

Followed by a daytrip to Tuscarora Beach in NY for our first swim in Lake Ontario!