Sueños 2015...

Part of Dad´s belief about our homeschooling is that it´s important for me to be exposed to different people´s ways of thinking, so that I can generate my own that is not exactly the same as his. So, to continue our studies of the cultural diversity in Colombia, we were back in Bogotá again to do two classes with my uncles as my teachers. The first day, I spent with my uncle Juampa at his house to learn about cultural diversity through the food of Colombia and the second day I was with Diego at his house, to learn the art of storytelling and the history behind it and of course to continue my music unit, because Diego seems to be the brother who inherited most of Dongui´s talent and love for music. Also, later this month, I will be visiting my uncle Pex and his family in the Llanos for Semana Santa, where I´ll also get his perspective.

When Dongui and I first arrived at Juampa’s, there was a ton of fruits, vegetables and spices on the table, which he told me to name. A few of them I had no clue about, for example the Ñame, the Arracacha (two roots) and the Guascas (similar to basil). Then, he took out three cards, one with Americas, one with Spain, and one with Africa written on them, the three main origins of Colombian food, and told me to try to take each ingredient and guess which place it came from. This was even harder than naming them, because for example, who new that onions and melons were originally from Africa.

After that, I asked about meats, because we had only gone over fruits and vegetables, but not any meat. So, we took out an atlas and Juampa said that I had to guess where all the meats came from and are eaten the most now. This was one of the hardest of all because when you’re driving around, you don’t just see a pig or sheep farm on the side of the road. Also, when I finished guessing, Dongui and Juampa told me about how 70% of the beef eaten in Bogotá is from Los Llanos.

Last, when lunchtime was just around the corner, Juampa explained to us about a thing called the “Encomienda” which was when the each Spanish family was allowed to take 20 natives as their slaves. But, because of this, the Spanish had to feed them, so they gave them chickens because they don’t need too much room and they are almost all, pure meat. When the natives cooked the chicken with their local ingredients and flavors, like Potatoes, Guascas, and Corn to make a soup, one of the first Colombian foods was created called “Ajiaco”, which we got to learn how to make from a woman named Ofelia. First you have to boil the corn and chicken with the Guascas, then you peel the three different types of potatoes (the Paramuna, Sabanera and Criolla), and if you are like me the end of your pinky finger too, by accident, and boil them. Last, you add everything together and put in capers and cream if you want to.

After our really good lunch we finished up by going through a cookbook and looking at all the popular Colombian dishes and what they are made of, like the ”Arroz con Chipichipis” which is rice with tiny tiny clams, and “Papas Saladas” - boiled potatoes encrusted in salt from Colombia, that are now popular in the Canary Islands, where the story of Columbus started over by Africa.

My favorite part was when we got to learn to make the Ajiaco from Ofelia, the lady who used to make it Sunday’s when my dad was a kid, because she is a master at that recipe. My day with Juampa and her was awesome since it totally connects with what I did with music with Dongui, because of the common story of the music and the food being brought from Spain to mix with the native´s, and then the slaves adding in their influences and ingredients. Also, the differentiation between all the regions and altitudes change the instruments and rhythms in music and the ingredients and flavors in food. All this is helping to explain my Dad´s question about diversity.

Finally, to complete my culinary experience, Dongui and I went to a restaurant at the National Museum where all the dishes were traditional Colombian recipes. These included fried arracacha croquettes, squid chicharrones, and coconut chicken from Chocó, adding more and more examples of Colombian foods.

The next day was going to be my lesson on storytelling with Diego, who is a professional storyteller. We started off by going over the four main parts of storytelling, which are voice, words, gestures and speed. Each of these characteristics can change the mood and meaning of a story completely. After that, we talked about the twelve archetypes and the three main paths – Power, Compassion and Wisdom – and how they each branch off into different characters and how most stories used some of these as characters to help people relate to them.

Then we went over the plot of a few stories as examples of these and practiced the different techniques through a few exercises, like having the listener change the speed of which you talk by clapping their hands in different numbers of times and you adjusting. These exercises and a lot of practice helped me be able to not only memorize the stories, but tell them with different moods.

The three stories that I practiced were about a monk on an island, mathematician and a poet on a train, and a clever and wise scientist, that all had lessons about the path of wisdom.

After almost sixteen hours of flying to get here and the loss of my Dad´s luggage, we finally arrived in Hoedspruit, South Africa, where our adventure began. My Dad decided to take me on two totally different safaris - the first one would almost replicate the style of an old hunting camp, where we would experience the bush on foot, guided by our own trails ranger and the second a fancier lodge, like I imagine the English noblemen would visit centuries ago, going on game drives in an open vehicle with a ranger and a tracker in the front.

When we first met our ranger Hardie, he told us that we were very lucky because we were going to take a detour on our way to Tsakane – our camp – to visit a different part of the Balule Game Reserve, where a pride of lions had just taken down a big giraffe. Hardie is a zoologist who is training to be a trails ranger and finishing his thesis for his Masters in Wildlife Management. He just came from spending over a year in the Kalahari Desert, studying the interaction between lions and African wild dogs, which is what his thesis is all about.

After passing a few impala, kudu and waterbuck, Hardie told us that we should quiet down and keep our arms in the vehicle, because we were approaching the kill site. At first, all I could see was the carcass of the giraffe with half of the body of a lion sticking out of its ribcage and the sounds of all the bones cracking. When he had finished eating, he went to lay down with the two lionesses and the eight other big cubs. I couldn´t believe to be sitting in a little truck within 12 feet of a pack of lions! I was really nervous and at the same time so amazed at the size of their bodies and especially their heads.

On our way to camp on our first day in Africa, apart from the pride of lions eating the giraffe, we also saw steenbok, a duiker, tons of impala, a bushbuck, many kudus, a few waterbuck, a gnu, several giraffes, tree squirrels, lots of vervet monkeys, four banded mongoose, warthogs, three elephants and a group of zebra.

When we finally got to our camp, which was called Tsakane (which my Dad insisted on calling Tsudoku Safari Camp), we met Mark, our head ranger and head chef. Mark is a skinnier version of Papa Smurf in a ranger uniform. He used to be part of the anti-poaching unit of the Kruger National Park for over 16 years, so when he walks in the bush it seems like he knows everything about everything. For example, he will often stop at some bush or tree and tell us what the local name is, what the local communities use it for, and how it relates and connects to everything else in the bush. But the coolest part of walking with him in the bush was stalking big animals. When we stalk an elephant, for example, first we need to locate it, because stalking nothing is kind of hard. Locating an animal in the thick bush is usually done by listening and smelling first, because the thick brush obscures most visibility until you are already too close, so every few minutes he stops to smell and listen and lights his pipe to tell the wind direction, because dropping sand or grass doesn´t work if there is almost no wind. Once he hears it, he will take us around in a single file line, to approach it from the down-wind side. In order for it not to sense us, every time it stops to look around or listen, we always have to stay low and be very still and once it goes back to eating or walking, we can continue on closer.

Before we began our first walking safari with him, Mark told us all the rules and procedures that we needed to follow, if for some reason we were dangerously close to an animal. For example, if an animal is dangerously close but Mark doesn’t see it, to get his attention we should snap our fingers instead of saying something (on the way, my Dad saw a dove and snapped his fingers to get my attention, totally forgetting what it meant…).

In the middle of our hike, Mark was up ahead following the trail of a rhino, when right next to us Hardie, Dad, and I heard the breaking and cracking of branches. All of us knew exactly what it was, but Mark who was a little ways up didn’t hear anything. So there we were, whispering as loudly as we could, so that it wouldn’t sense that we were there, but Mark could hear us trying to get his attention. Finally, Dad remembered the rule about snapping, so he snapped once and immediately got Mark´s attention. At first, Hardie signaled for every one to squat down. Then, he told us to slowly and quietly walk up the little hill, so we could see it better from a safe distance. Hardie took us strait to the top while Mark cut through the brush on the side. Just on the other side of the top, we all stepped out onto a small little path, and there it was - a big angry African bull elephant looking directly at us, with its ears open, its head up and its trunk down between its legs, which is the typical “I am about to charge” pose. After a few seconds of staring right at us, it decided that we were still to close, so it charged several steps in our direction. Mark calmly but firmly and clearly gestured for us to stand still then walk back up the hill. After seeing that we backed off, the elephant decided to leave us alone and took off down into the bush with a few others that we didn’t see. Although Mark always carries a gun on the walking safaris, he has never had to use it in a situation like that, because he knows that once you cross the invisible line of where an animal feels comfortable with your presence, all you need to do is observe its behavior and respond by gently giving it its space. Later Mark told us that we were part of the 1% of people who have walked that close to a wild bull elephant in musth, and lived to tell about it.

This is a good example of the type of experience you will never get when you are in a driving safari. This doesn´t mean that driving safaris are bad at all, they are awesome, but on walking safaris you feel very humbled at the power of all the animals around you, you are totally dependent on your sense of awareness when there is no car to protect you, and you know that any wrong decision can be tragic, but at the same time you feel totally excited and super connected.

Also, when you are on foot, you get to experience the smells and sounds of the bush, you get to touch and feel everything closer (Dad and I definitely felt it every time we kicked elephant poop at each other!) and you realize that a safari is not only about the Big Five, but also to get to see the awesome secrets of the smaller creatures. My favorite of all was the larva of the “Myrmeleon” or ant lion - and no, it is not a cross between an ant and a lion. It is a little bug which buries itself in a cone-shaped hole in the sand, where it waits for an ant to walk through. When the ant comes in, the ant immediately kicks the sand up in the air, creating a tiny little avalanche, which brings the startled ant down to it for a good meal. After many avalanches and many meals, the ant lion eventually becomes a “lacewing”, which is a type of damselfly.

Something that makes this type of conversations even harder is that Dad’s belief is that if you address these emotions directly after the situation that triggered them and then write about them, then they become lessons that you remember for your whole life.

One example of this was this morning, when I forgot to set my alarm, so I accidently slept in for an hour after I was supposed to meet Dad for breakfast and class in the dining room. And of course, Dad didn’t come wake me up because he wanted me to be responsible for getting up. So, or course, because that happened Dad and I sat down right away and talked about responsibility and freedom. He explained to me about how responsibility and freedom are like the two sides of the same coin, because one always comes with the other. For example, when I was little, I had no choice because my parents said when I was to go to sleep, but now Dad gives me the freedom to decide when I want to go to bed, but having the freedom to choose means I need to be responsible and make sure I get up on time in the morning.

He also explained to me that how when kids are little, they do not have enough experience to see the consequences of their actions. So in turn, their parents need to be “hyper-responsible” because not only do they have to be responsible for themselves, but also for their “irresponsible” kid. Now that I’m growing up, I am becoming more responsible, which means I have the experience to foresee consequences and choose my actions accordingly. Having more choices means that I have more freedom, but also I need to be more aware of the consequences of those choices, which gives me more responsibilities. Then, my parents don’t have to be responsible for me all the time, so the relationship between us becomes more of “adult to adult”.

¡Con la comida no se juega! - Don’t Play With Your Food! was the name of my Dad´s course this weekend, but the funny part was that we did the opposite of that - actually we learned how to not only consciously play with our food, but almost learn to communicate with it.

Dad started off by explaining that food is not only nutrition but connection and then lead us through several excercises, so that we could understand the three levels of sensory awareness with food.

He gave us each an apple and we started to examine and explore them with our sight and hearing, because they are the senses we use the most. Then, when we finished exploring the apple through seeing and hearing, we used our smell, touch and taste, in that order. This was not just exploring, but we looked, heard, smelled, touched and tasted (just the air around our apple, without actually eating it…) so much that we had saturated our abilities to sense and were forced to “sense” in other ways, which my Dad calls “hypersensory and extrasensory awareness”.

Then dad showed us how to find the pulse and blood pressure in the wrists and hands of our friends using our “hypersensory awareness”. Once we learned this, we tried it with the apples we had and some plums he passed around, to find the yin and yang pulsations in the fruit. For me, this meant that some fruit have bright large energy and some have darker smaller energy. The apple was the big bright one and the plum was the other.

Then, we used all our senses and the “pulse” all together to saturate them again and were then able to feel what the food “had to say” using our “extrasensory awareness”. I liked being able to actually “ask” a food if it would be good for us and what it would be good for, or if it would be bad for us and what it would be bad for. At the end, I decided not to eat the plum or the apple, because they “told” me that if I ate them then I would feel not to good.

With this skill of being able to “listen and talk to the food”, together with our small groups we separated to go to a bunch of tables, each with a different theme of food on it. The first table we went to was the “spice table”, where half of them were naturally grown spices from the Amazon, and the others were artificially enhanced spice blends, that were filled with chemicals.

The second table we went to was “the carbohydrate table”. Again half of the food was good and healthy and half was bad or unhealthy, but this time the healthy food was granola, arepas and sourdough bread and the unhealthy foods were kids cereal, cream filled cookies and white bread.

The third table we went to was “the mutants”, where all the fruits were GMO’s (genetically modified organisms). These included seedless grapes, colorful cherry tomatoes, and long lasting “Flavr Savr” tomatoes. At this table my group and I all got very bad feelings when we used our senses to feel what they “had to say”.

Fourth, we went to the table of “the Dirty Dozen”, which are fruits that are grown using bad and illegal chemicals. My group and I where rally amazed by how easy it was to see and smell all the chemicals, especially when we burned the skin of an unwashed green apple and looked at the table grapes.

Fifth, we went to the “vinegar table”, which of course was full of all different types of vinegars, ranging from naturally fruit made mother vinegar (home-made by my Dad in his crazy lab) to industrially processed ascetic acid with artificial fruit flavors and caramel color, of which you could smell the chemicals, while the gulupa one smelled like a flowery spring field and felt calm and happy, as if it would give you great health.

Finally, we ended the day at the “natural, local, and seasonal table”, where everything was exactly that. This was awesome, because even when we where just walking over, we could smell all the fruits saying “Come eat me!” and once we sat down we loved the feeling of them, and we all wanted to try eating everything there! I especially loved the fresh pineapple, because it tasted like edible sunshine.

The next day, we first listened to my dad talk about what foods are best for different aged people. I understood that when babies are really small, they need their mother’s milk because their mom is their whole world, so that connection needs to be enforced through that special nourishment. Later, they need to eat foods that will promote the most growth possible. These foods that promote growth are carbohydrates, sugars, eggs, and dairy (pretty much the average American’s breakfast). For example, a long time ago, kids needed to grow as fast as they could because the bigger they were the faster they could run away from predators and other dangers. Then, when kids start learning about everything, the more different types of animals and vegetables and fruit and all around foods they eat, the more building blocks they have to learn, grow, think and talk. For example, if each type of food was a letter of the alphabet and you only ate chicken breasts and steak tips you would only be able to say “EE UU EU UE”. Later, adults should have healthy fats and proteins along with fermented and aged foods like cheeses and alcohols.

Last, he told us the analogy of the three energy factories. In the first one, the employees worked twelve hours a day, seven days a week, with no vacations. The second, eight hours a day, five days a week, one week of vacation a year. The third, five hours a day, one day on one day off, one month of vacation a year. For the first couple years, company number one would produce the most, but after ten or fifteen years company one would have failed because every one would have gotten sick, died or quit, but company two would still be in business and company three would be doing the best. If these companies are replaced with the three ways the body gets energy from food, carbohydrates and sugars being company one, fats being company two and animal proteins being company three, the comparison of time that the energy will last still remains proportional. So, in order to stay healthy, out of everything you eat each day carbohydrates and sugars should be minimal and fats and proteins should be the majority. Exception made for small kids who need that fast energy to grow quickly that adults don’t need.

After that, I don´t quite know what my Dad was talking about, because that is when I had to go start the fire with Mateo, because we were the assigned “Fire Men” in charge of making hot coals, moving them to the grill and adjusting the heat within the grill to wherever Chef Codi needed it. To help everyone continue getting more “letters for their alphabet” Chef Codi and my Dad had planned a crazy lunch where we would prepare, cook and eat seventeen different recipes made from all types of entrails and organs of different kinds of animals, like a whole rabbit, lamb and bull testicles, beef brains, a salad made of pig´s ears and lamb tongues, bone marrow spread on sourdough bread, kidneys, hearts, livers, a pork´s neck and belly and pork liver patés.

Now that I finished my homeschooling semester with Dad, I look back at my first report, where I was very unsure and anxious about all this, and now realize how really lucky I am to have had this possibility. At the same time, I realize that it is a good thing that I have also been going to regular school to have this awesome combination. First of all, if we did all these crazy adventures all the time, they would not be so special and I would be a spoiled little boy, who probably would not even enjoy them anymore and my Dad would be bankrupt. And attending only regular school is just “regular”, because now I understand that regular school you are taught to “do this” and “not do that”, just because you are supposed to. In other words, they teach you “what to do”, but they don´t really teach you the “whys”. This semester of homeschooling has given me the opportunity to learn not only the “whys”, but now I understand the importance of them and now I will choose to do them, because before they were just unexplained rules.

Not only have I learned the importance of “Choice”, but the importance of “Gratitude”, too. One of my Dad´s goals was for me to be exposed to many different ways of thinking and perspectives on life in general, and not only to his and Mom’s. So, he arranged a long long list of “teachers” for the different topics of my homeschooling, including a few who were not planned for, but came up along the way. I know I don’t have everyone who I have learned from here, but these are some of the people that I would like to specially thank for teaching me and helping me understand so much:

Hernán Mendez, Maquis and their family, Don Iván, and Johanni from my coffee adventure; Dongui and Mauricio Posada from the cultural diversity through music week; Silvia Gómez, Aleja Balcázar, Adriana Puech and all the students from the holistic science weekends; Jose Castaño, Lorenzo, Doug Knapp, and Diego Calderón from all of our birding experiences; Juampa and Diego from “Cultural Diversity Through Food” and “Storytelling”; Chef Codi and Pedro from “¡Con la comida no se juega!”; Pex, Luisa, Fabio and Mariela, Don Efra, and Herney from my cowboy experience; Dexter Dombro from the foresting project; my “Big Brother” Mauro García from my week sailing and from our Amazon expedition; Hardie, Mark, Elvis, and Jenni from South Africa; and The Cruz-Pachón´s, Tati – the Frog Lady - Esteban, Neginho, Martín, the Gaia Foundation and the staff from El Cocotal, Manuel, Rodrigo, and Guaya from our 20 days in the Amazon.

Another special thank you to Lina and Dongui for hosting me at their homes, helping me with my Spanish and being so nice to me.