Summering in New England

Like all good East Coasters, my mother and I summer in New England.  I guess not quite, but we did go to New England to visit a part of the USA neither of us had been.

 

After many airport delays we ended up with a short side trip to Providence, Rhode Island.  I am sure Rhode Island is nice, but that is about how I felt at during day one in New England.We hightailed it back up to Boston to have one very rushed day in Beantown.

 

From there we drove northeast to Vermont.  Vermont was amazing.  The culture, the land, the hills, and the beer.  People there may be sick of maple flavor, but I am not sure I can be.

From there we decided to take this trip international and bilingual.  Canada bitches.

 

After our foray in Vermont, we head due east and coastal to Maine.  America's top-hat did not disappoint.  It was green, oceany, full of lobster rolls, and sailboats. 

The High Trestle

The High Trestle Trail connects Ankeny north to Slater and then east to Woodward.  The section between Woodward and Madrid is the most notable part since it has a reconstructed railroad bridge.  The bridge is 18 stories high.  The trestle has been reshaped into an evolving pattern of squares to give a person riding through an illusion of passing through a tunnel.  With my friends Brian and Zane, we biked the majority of the trail.

Spring Cleaning

There hasn't been to much amazing adventures going on in my world.  Sometimes you just have to get some work done.  That doesn't mean that my life has been unexciting by an stretch, just not a lot a traveling.  The break has been nice in a lot of ways.

 

Ulysses

Galena, Illinois: A little town made famous for its proximity near the Mississippi, its surviving Victorian architecture, and its most famous resident Ulysses Simpson Grant. Mostly surviving now-a-days as a Midwestern hamlet, Galena embodies the idea that drives people to bed and breakfasts. It is a place my mother has been taking me since I was small and a favorite little town of mine. I believe I have been on a tour of Grant's home there around 10 times.

"Hey Brian, Did you see that? I know you have the time; they most definitely have the beer."

Political, sometimes what seem like obvious governance goes by the way side for other political reasons. This is news to no one. Recently, the voters of the city of Cedar Rapids turned down a proposal to build a flood wall for the Lower West side for all the typical reasons (no taxes are good taxes, it would destroy the river, or people should never live anywhere where they could be flooded). I had to admire what Galena did creating a natural flood wall to protect its downtown. Instead of making the downtown district worse, it actually greatly enhanced it by giving the city an inclosed feeling that made the whole city feel more intimate. The top has become a walking trail and the wall gives Galena a natural earthy feeling. It feels like a small town version of Cartagena.

Domestic Life

My life cannot always be exciting. I would love to have amazing pictures to continually show the world, but unfortunately I am busy working and that simply is not that thrilling. That does not mean I never whip out my DSLR and go shoot some photos. Mother Nature is still punishing me for my time spent swimming each day in the Caribbean and I continue to find enjoyment from fighting my mother's cats.

If you ever need a fun activity, you should try going to an Asian market and have someone there show you each weird item they have despite not speaking English. If you listen long enough they will sample all the cool fruits for you.

"Mom, can I eat the cat?"



"No"

Finally I had to take a picture of my 2011 tax return. I feel my tax return fairly shows how awesome of a 2011 I had.

Wintertime U.S.A.

I live in the Midwest. For whatever reason some long time ago, people decided that would be a good idea... or at least a very cold one.

Life as a Nazarite

Okay, so I am back living in the United States facing unemployment/underemployment and the single best winter the upper Midwest has ever received. When I am not providing people with far too many drinkable calories, watching Steve Wilkos throw chairs around while sweating on a treadmill, or biking along muddy trails, I spend a lot of time remembering where I have been. I have done a lot really quickly, and this being the first time I am not actively doing some thing massive in my life since I was into death metal; I have a lot to think about.

I went though my massive collection of photos from the research I did in South Africa in 2009; there was not a shortage of them. I looked back at the blog post i did a couple of years ago about my research and it doesn't even justify how important or amazing the work was. So I have decided to post a collection of picture from those months really showing how life changing the experience was for me and how unique and beautiful of a world the Shembe community has created.

I returned to Durban after studying abroad there. With lot of planning and even more help from Prof. Dale Wallace, I immediately starting living with a family of amazing Shembe followers in Musgrave. The family included Gogo, Nuntu, Zahkona, Phiwo, Yoli, Njabulo, Lusanda, and an infinitive rotating amount of cousins so that the tiny two bedroom apartment was never less then 3 people past capacity.

The first month of my time was taken up by library research, adjustments to living, and Sabbath observance. This included going to Elinda in the north of Zululand near the Zulu Royal Family's homestead in Empangeni. There I saw lots of ceremonies, including the wedding ceremony.

In July I moved to eBuhleni in the far reaches of the outer township of Inanda near the Inanda Dam. eBuhleni is the holy city of the Nazarites, and this means that anyone living here must practice the Shembe traditions at all times including never wearing shoes. eBuhleni is a hill, the bottom is the entrance and the rough and thorny walk up to the ceremonial ground is surround by extremely densely packed city. I live in a tent on top of the hill, but my family stayed in a house at the bottom where I spent the majority of my time.

Oh course, the reason I was there was to research the church... and I did. Hours and hours of research. Research from the crack of dawn until the midnight and 2 a.m. mass. I spent time with people dancing, in one of the many services each day, kneeling for hours, going to baptisms, weddings, virginity testing, circumcision, ancestor ceremonies, weddings, puberty rites, and to top it off more kneeling. Seriously, the Nazarites kneel all the time. That is hands down the most impressive thing they do. All while wear heavy clothes in the beating African sun. I went through close 2000 photos of people in white robes to pick out a few great ones.

Of course, Shembe is famous for dancing, and I saw hours and hours of it.

This blog is not about Shembe though, it is about me. I have written a lot on the topic and the amazing people who make up the church. Most importantly, the family who took me in and took care of me is what I would like to share. So here is a picture of my family, one that captures my life for that time, and one of my family and me leaving Ebuhleni.