A compass when there is no map

A series of events in the last days have got me round here back again. I remember last summer having a conversation around a beer in Yosemite, a friend of mine used the word ‘aseptic’ to describe my year in the US. The context was different then, but at that time I found the word to fit the experience pretty well.
With a little bit more of reflection, now I think it was not. I lived a lot, in a way I hadn’t before; I met brilliant and inspiring people and realized I truly like what I do for a living, put aside the ton of stuff I learnt, academic-wise. But probably the most important thing I left the US with was the convincement that “I can”. It sounds halfway between corny and very american, in the european despective way, but only if you haven’t ever felt it. The most relevant change in me after the US year was to wake up to the fact that it is possible to live your own way, to create and follow your own path; and even more important, this whole thing probably only makes sense if you do so. You don’t have to give up on what you believe because they say it’s the ‘only’ way; you can write your story, and you’d better do, because if you miss the True Meaning, that ’something’ that makes all the rest small and wakes you up in the morning, you’re going nowhere, whatever others tell you. Taking that to reality and making it happen is probably a different animal, but even if the road to get there is tough, it’s better to know what the destination is. Last summer, I was also fortunate to be involved in one of the most meaningful projects I’ve ever collaborated with that took me to India. When we were packing, Julia concluded that maps and guides are part of the tourist toolkit and, as such, we should avoid them. Instead, she bought two compasses for us to navigate around Mumbai and gave one to me. For the joy of our relatives and beloved ones, we never got to use them, but I did keep mine and, today, while I was looking for something else in my bag, I stumbled across it. I can’t think of a better gift to represent what I mean.

As good as it was, however, the American year did not come for free. For the first time in my life, I understood the meaning of ‘far’, sadly realized one can’t be in two places at the same time, and I learned that the hard way. Furthermore, for ten months I put aside many feelings, (unconciously) stopped taking pictures and writing and almost got convinced the best way you can use your time, always, is working. When I came back to Spain for Christmas and could zoom out a little bit from the day-to-day life, I realized that was not totally right and maybe a little time in Europe would do me some good. And here is where Amsterdam comes in. It’s now been roughly a month and a half, but it feels way longer; definitely life’s not to be measured in seconds but in moments. Events have compressed incredibly and the 8-hours sleep and quiet life I used to have has just vanished and been replaced by a rollercoaster of feelings and emotions, ups and downs in which happiness mixes sometimes with frustation, uncertainty and fatigue with the only constant of never being mild. It is still too early but, if there is a lesson I can take from all this stream, it’s that living and experiencing is always worthwhile, that the only true regret comes from what we do NOT do and that good and bad, sweet and bitter, need each other to define themselves. I also think I am starting to understand that quote from the movie ‘Monsieur Ibrahim and the Flowers of the Koran’ about the Arab view of love, giving and feelings (“your love is yours, it belongs to you. (…) Whatever you give is yours forever. Whatever you keep gets eternally lost“) which never really made sense before. Only six weeks, but it’s been time enough to get back on my shots (ok, until my camera broke), on my urban walks and on my lyrical side. And certainly, it’s been time enough to get me writing again.

India03: Quick Update

So, after a couple of really hectic days learning why India is becoming one of the main countries in the world (and also teaching a workshop to realize it…), we’ve taken off Bangalore this after-noon and landed in Mumbai at 5 pm. After 2 hours in a cab to make the less than 10 Km to the hotel we’ve found out the place we had booked turns out to be a little bit different from what we expected (it’s actually a pretty western place with most of what I don’t like of it but anyway…). Tomorrow we’ll try to see a bit of this huge monster called Mumbai and at the end of the day, we’ll head to the airport to take the flight back to Europe. Then connection to Madrid, bus and finally home.

So many amazing stuff that’s changed many views and strength some others, but getting into the details is something for later on when I’m back, I make some sense out of this whole thing and  I can meet you for a coffee or a beer and tell you. By now, it’s time to try to find a local place to have a bite of real India…

India02: update from the rainforest

After three days in the middle of a 1100m. high tea plantation trying to understand why elephants hit human settlements from time to time, to set up a woorkshop pretty much from scratch and to ignore the fact that it seems someone up there forgot to close the tap and it’s pouring down like crazy (some call it monsoon), tomorrow we are heading to Bangalore to teach the actual workshop on wednesday and thursday (tuesday is all for prep).

These have been a mix of the almost stressing peace you find here, the actual stress of seeing the workshop coming and not having it ready and the joy and greatness of all the learning we are doing and the people we are meeting. Pix and more to come but by now I just wanted the world know I’m still alive and safe at the end of it. The next days will be pretty hectic with all the preparation and workshop, but being here, surrounded by all the wildlife sounds once darkness has taken over, it feels hard to get into that mood of action and  movement…

India01-Trip and Arrival

Last sunday, after a very hectic week in Barcelona at the SEA meeting and then in the Pyrenees, I got on a bus to Madrid Barajas at 3am; 4  hours later I was taking off to Munich where I had a great day visiting the main spots of the city. A day after we took a connection flight to Frankfurt and then took off to Mumbai. Seven hours later we tried to get to the hotel (1.5 Km away from the airport) and it took us good 20 minutes due to the moonson rain that was pouring. It’s 3am on a monday and all I can think of is getting some sleep because we are at the destination yet.

8am of wednesday, the wake-up call from reception sounds and gotta get on move again. Back to the airport (now in the domestic flights terminal), a few security controls, normal wait and we’re on the air again on our way to Coimbatore, where the airport is not more than a small building where you get your luggages out of the cart that brings them from the plane. There we meet Shankar, our host, who takes us for a great meal and then to the Valparai plateau, where we’ll spend the next four days. The drive goes through many small villages crowed with people, animals, small houses that seem about to crumble and big Vodafone signs. The landscape is amazing and I just feel like if the car window was a TV showing a wildlife documentarry. After a couple of hours of that, we start going uphill and nature gets wilder: the plain gets substituted by the jungle where only the road gives a little of open space. At the top, the tea plantation domains but I’m so tired I can just see the guest house where they are hosting us and the bed inside.

Ten minutes of drive from there is Valparai and the field station of the team we work with. From there you can see the tea plantation and the curtain of rain that seems to be part of this landscape as much as the trees or the tea leaves. There is where I write this piece of information from and, afer 10 hours of sleep, this starts looking much better…

Switching from Kangaroos to Elephants…

Right when I’m getting done with my adventure on kangaroos, here it comes the next one! This time is not about writing a paper about the farthest away from home country but about actually going somewhere. The GeoDa Center I’m visiting this year is starting now to work and collaborate with the Nature Conservation Foundation in India; the main purpose is to try to bring spatial analysis tools into wildlife conservation to help understand and manage the relationship between humans and animals. It is meant to be a long term relationship with a lot of results expected, but one of the first steps made to start walking down this road is the celebration of a two-day long workshop on spatial analysis and techniques for grad students and scholars to take place at the NCBS in Bangalore in July. I was offered to be part of the team which will go into the field and teach the course and, before the offer was ended, I had already said yes. So, if all goes as expected, next July 14th. I’ll get on a plane to Mumbay and spend 10 days in one of the countries which for a long time was on my to-go list but never actually found a good excuse for. Teaching at one of the cutting-edge centers for biological sciences in India seems like a good one, doesn’t it?

California rushing…

I just got back home after a weekend in California: on friday I got on a plane to LA where Ago was waiting me to take for a drink and later for dinner; I think there are moments to make history and others to remember it and, if you manage to combine both in the right composition, it’s perfect. This one was one of them to remember and so we did around tons of great and cheap sushi in my already preferred place in LA, a very small and humble restauran run by five japanese where decoration barely exists but reggae is in the air and sushi is delicious.

As we say in Spain ” good, if short, is double good”, the following morning I got up real early and headed over the airport to continue my “revival” tour: it was time to San Francisco and the great times and people spent in Korea now a year and a half ago. A couple of koreans from the summer school happened to be in the city and we arranged a weekend there, so Katie would come up from Orange county and I’d go from AZ. It was really short and unplanned but the only fact that it happened already made me happy. We ate tons of asian food and sweets and chatted all over the weekend; I spent the night at my friend Jesus’ place and this morning, after mexican breakfast, I got on a plane, again.

It’s been really short, just like a dream, just like memories are, they come and go and the meantime in between is what really matters and makes life great; but it’s been the perfect way to forget about the desert and work for a while and, considering the month now just finishes (coming back from Spain, moving to the new apartment, rushing to finish work with no success…), it was just perfect. Here are the pics although there are not that many; I usually get very lazy about taking pictures, specially when people I am with have cameras (not difficult if you are with four asians…). Anyway, serve yourself:

Weekend in California [Korea remember]

Delayed pics

Just trying to update the picture storage in here. Right before coming back home for Christmas, the great David invited us to a tamale-making party at this place. Tamales are typical mexican food based on corn hash, meat and fat (alright, I didn’t say much to differenciate it…) which are usually made at that part of the year. We gathered something like ten folks and worked cooperatively (hereby the joke of “kibutz”) to make up to 400 of them in a few hours. Here is the proof:

Mexican Kibutz [Tamale making party]

Also, during the month back home, I had the chance to travel to the (my beloved) Pyrenees a couple of times; one with the family and the other one to visit Angel, a friend of mine who’s actually living and working up there in Sallent de Gallego. One of those mornings I grabbed my camera and went off for a walk, here is a little bit what it looked like:

Christmas in Spain

]d[

Update

I know I’ve been pretty absent for the last two months, but I guess a pretty crazy month back home for Christmas and a really hectic back to the desert with the post-Chistmas depression and a paper to be re-done make up for a good excuse, if that can be accepted

Christmas back home was good, pretty stressing and with some sad parts, but it was nice overall. Meeting friends, eating good and travelling around the beautiful part of this world where I belong. What else can I ask for?

Anyway, I just wanted to drop a few lines to update my life for those interested:

• I’ve moved from the house where I lived during fall to a much closer one and it’s turning out to have been a very good decission, now I live in a smaller place but way closer to “life” (it’s closer to the uni and to downtown), which is good when you don’t have a car.
• I’ve arranged a trip to California for next weekend: I’ll fly out on friday to LA, have dinner with Ago and spend the night there and, on saturday morning, I’ll get on a plane to SF to have remember weekend with some friend I made in Korea. I’l post the pics and more once back home.
• I’ve missed home like hell and I’ve (am) worked my ass right off.
• And I’m still learning and happy…

Go South, young man…

Charlie steps into my office and suggests going for a beer. It’s thursday, 10pm and I’ve been working a good deal of the day, I accept. On our way there, while we ride our bikes, we talk about his trip down to Tucson’s mountains for rock climbing. At some point, he asks: “so, do you wanna come out?” Before he’s ended the question I’ve already said yes. So last friday we got on his car with Andrew (a programmer also related to the GeoDa Center) and headed south. All along yesterday, we hiked trying to find the place where they wanted to climb, but the approach hike turned into a day-long hike. But who cares? At the end of the day, after such a wonderful sunset in the sabannah-like landscape, we set a campfire and talked for a while under the fully starred sky. Really nice getaway from the Phoenix area, in which I also had the chance to dive into the american mind and learn so much about how americans view life and world. Here you have some pix to testify I was there; althoug I don’t show up in any of them, trust me I was behind…

Tucson Mountains

San Diego rocks!!!

My office mate Dave is moving out of San Diego. As many others (including myself, though I´m a little bit an outsider), he´s new to the GeoDa Center, and he still had all his stuff back in the West coast. So, this weekend was the One to finish packing up and he was kind enough to invite me to the let´s-load-the-truck! party. Basically this was the deal: I´d go with my other mate Charlie on thursday night and be back home on sunday with Dave, Gosa (his dog) and all his home at the back of the truck; he wouldn´t be able to show me around as he´d be working (understandable when you need to set down a home…) but I could take some hours off on saturday if desired while the rest of the guys were loading up. Pretty good deal for me… Until I realized it was a six hours drive from Tempe to San Diego. I guess I´m just not that american yet. But it was too late then

Forgetting about all the Km´s of desert, so far so good: although I haven´t been able to see the city around that much, I did have the opportunity to hang out with the guys from the Department of Geography at SDSU, to have lunch at a korean restaurant this morning with Katie, the taiwanese who literally saved my ass in Taiwan last year and to have dinner at a Salvadorian place where I loved the (very cheap) food. All those will sound like a good excuse, but I must say the real reason why I came to this trip was stepping over the place I´d been dreaming of all over my teenage on Eurosport when I watched the X-Games; and, though I didn´t get to ride any skate or pass by the beach and see all those skater-girls in bikini yelling at the bikers on the half-pipe, being at a normal bar and start listening to Bro Hymn really put the smile on my face… Mission acomplished.