good news network

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I love new beginnings: new years, birthdays, and the start of a new school year. My husband teaches, and my daughters are both going to "school" this fall, so there is a palpable excitement in our house about the new chapter beginning soon. (School starts on Monday.)

If you're in need of a pick-me-up, and the usual bad-news news is bringing you down, I've found the Good News Network to be a great source of good deeds and happy events.

Here's a rundown of some recent happenings:

- Why 100 Black Men In Suits Were Cheering by a School Bus 

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- Mexico Asked Graffiti Artists To Paint An Entire Town – Joy Was the Result

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- He Hauls His Upright Piano to Beaches and Parks Just to Make Your Day

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-  Quiet Time Program Brings Radical Improvement To Schools Worldwide

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It's nice to be reminded that the world is a good place.

entre amigos in san pancho, mexico

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Greetings from Mexico! We have been traveling a ton, so I'm sorry for being MIA for so long. I will post pictures from our trip to India next, but for this post, I had to share a beautiful nonprofit I discovered today called Entre Amigos (Between Friends), based in San Pancho (San Francisco), Mexico.

The founder, Nicole Swedlow, started in 2006 teaching arts and crafts to children with a little art cart on the street, and now, it's a 16,000 square foot space that beautifully combines education, community, art, recycling, a free library, language classes, and a cafe in a wonderfully welcoming atmosphere that you can learn more about here.

If I could create something like this in my lifetime, I would die a happy woman.

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As a bonus, Swedlow, described as extremely humble, was honored by the Dalai Lama last spring as an "unsung hero of compassion," as you can read about here.

happily ever after to a four-year-old

beautiful Mexican beach wedding

Happy 2014!  I hope your new year is off to a fabulous start.

My partner and I were talking with his cousin at a lovely family wedding, and she told us this story:

We had to explain what a wedding was to our four-year-old, and we said it was sort of like watching a show because you're supposed to sit still and watch what people are doing and listen to what people are saying and not make any noise.  The reason it's really important is because these two people have decided that they really love each other and want to spend the rest of their lives together, and we get to be part of the celebration.  My four-year-old thought about this for a moment and then said, "Mommy, can we get married?"

I actually teared up a bit, hearing this.  I am a big sap, but holy moly, this is why we decide to be parents.

May your year be full of beautiful moments like these.

gabriel dawe

www.gabrieldawe.com

Poor Japan.  I teared up when I saw some video clips of the earthquake/tsunami damage on the New York Times website.

So, I offer you a happy, colorful respite.  Mexican-born, Texas-based artist Gabriel Dawe uses over fifty miles of brightly colored thread to create these amazing installations that feel so light and yet have such potent color.

The Fast Company introduction:

Dawe was born in Mexico and says a lot of his work is about challenging the machismo culture of his homeland...  Ergo, his attraction to thread-- which in Mexico is associated almost exclusively with sewing (i.e. women's work). 

www.gabrieldawe.com

You can see some slide shows here or check out his website for more info.  Enjoy!

usa, mexico and the netherlands

Traveling across the U.S. on our road trip really made me appreciate the beauty of the States, but now, our fearless president is a Nobel Peace Prize winner, too. I don't think there has been a better moment in my lifetime to be American. It feels like the world is becoming a better place already.

And I quite liked this quote: "Some people say, and I understand it, isn't it premature? Too early? Well, I'd say then that it could be too late to respond three years from now," Nobel Committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland said. "It is now that we have the opportunity to respond – all of us."

Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, who won the prize in 1984, summed it up by saying, "It is an award that speaks to the promise of President Obama's message of hope."

Obama is my hero. And now, back to our scheduled catching up (rather anticlimactic, I realize). But shoot, if President Obama can push us towards world peace, the least I can do is keep my blog up to date. Los Angeles first.

My partner’s a big history buff, so we went to the La Brea tar pits (free on the first Tuesday of the month):

We learned that, right in the middle of what is now L.A., there used to be mammoths, camels, lions, saber-tooth cats, jaguars, cheetahs and bison (and lots of others that I can't remember now). Can you imagine one of those strolling down Sunset or Wilshire? It would be quite a sight to behold. Here's a camel skeleton they found, for example:

They also had a yellow wall with over 400 dire wolf skulls, representing about a quarter of the ones they've found so far. Their theory was that packs of wolves would try to feed on animals stuck in the tar and get stuck themselves:

We discovered that the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) next door has pay-whatever-you-want twilight hours (after 5pm), so we went for a quick visit there, too.

There was a neat exhibit on Korean artists that I’d recommend checking out, if you’re in the L.A. area. Photography was prohibited inside, where the best pieces were, but I loved the colors in this one outside:

It was made of cheap plastic bowls, sieves and cups:

I also liked this one, which resembled a fountain of street lights:

We stopped by the Griffith Observatory (which was also free), where we got a beautiful view of L.A...

and saw (through a gigantic telescope) the largest four of Jupiter's sixty-three (!) moons: Io (with more volcanic activity than any other body in the solar system), Europa (covered in water and ice and believed to have twice as much water than Earth), Ganymede (the largest moon in the solar system, larger than the planet Mercury and the only moon with its own magnetic field) and Callisto (mostly ice and rock, less interesting), all named by Galileo in 1610. I know, let me push up my nerdy glasses and go nuts.

Anyway. From L.A., we went to see my partner’s family in Lo de Marcos, Mexico, where we spent two weeks in bikinis and swim trunks because it was super hot and humid.

But, who can complain when you’re right in front of the beach, drinking fresh coconut juice, eating coconut curry (made with fresh coconut!) and spending time with great people? Not to mention how warm the ocean water was—like stepping into cooled bathwater, which was perfect at sunset. We even grilled fresh shrimp, lobster and fish.

(These are the moments that make me feel very grateful for my life and a sense of responsibility, that I really have to give back in whatever way I can to the universe to say thanks for what I have. The hard part is figuring out exactly what that means in practice.) But I digress.

Speaking of food, we also had the most amazing little tacos, complete with cucumbers, beans, a variety of sauces, seasoned cactus, etc. (YUM), which made me look forward to living in California and being surrounded by delicious Mexican food.

We enjoyed spending time with all of the different family members who were with us, but we spent most of our time playing with our little niece (1-1/2 years) and nephew (5 months). I loved running around and generally acting like an idiot with the kiddos, but seeing that you couldn't leave them unsupervised for even a moment confirmed that I wasn’t ready for my own babies anytime soon. (Backpacking for a year is also not the most convenient time to start life with a newborn.)

After L.A., we stopped in New York for a weekend, where we got to hang out with family and eat at two of my favorite restaurants, Saigon Grill (and I don’t even love Vietnamese, usually) and Il Corallo (my favorite Italian restaurant in the States, near Sullivan and Prince). It was a quick visit, but we got to check out the new (to us) pedestrian-only areas of Times Square (a great change):

and the Chelsea Market, which used to be the National Biscuit Company (now Nabisco) factory.

It was a beautiful, industrial space with lots of exposed brick, an arch with a clock that looked like the Hulk just ran through, and tons of great food. If you're in New York and haven't been, it's worth a visit.

Then (almost done catching up, finally), we flew to Amsterdam.

We’d stopped in Amsterdam both ways on our trip to Morocco, so this time, we pretty much just spent the day at the Anne Frank House, which was really well done and worth visiting. (And of course, we got our requisite Vlaamse frites.)

We walked around the canals, enjoying the scenery, checked out the flower market, and then went back to the airport to catch our flight to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (via Nairobi, Kenya).

Which is where we are now. We've been without power for a few days, though, so we’ve been unplugged for a little while. But more on Dar in my next post.

Saludos from Mexico!

What a change from blustery, below-freezing Boston. We flew into Puerto Vallarta, Mexico (via Los Angeles), last night, and the pilot said the weather was about 83F as we were landing. What a change from what I described to my mom as 'colder than a freezer.'

Puerto Vallarta is a touristy, resorty stretch of beautiful beaches, and we tend to fly in and immediately drive away. Last night, we went to Sayulita for an outdoor taco dinner. Sayulita is about half an hour away and a picture-perfect little town, complete with cobblestone streets, tiny storefronts and perfect waves for surfing. I haven't checked Lonely Planet, but I would guess that it's listed as a backpacker haven. We saw signs for 'Revolucion Tacos' as we drove in, probably of backpacker travel guide fame.

Is Sayulita charming? Absolutely. It could easily be a movie backdrop, and there is no bad angle from which to photograph postcards and photos for friends. The thatched roof over us as we ate dinner was exactly as one would dream of it being; the tables were beautiful slices of tree trunk balanced on delicate black wrought iron stands. Everything about the tacos was handmade from scratch-- the tortillas, the toppings, and the meat was grilled right next to us. Yum. What was jarring was that most of the people walking around were American. Young Americans with surfboards, American families with little children and slightly older, American hippies.

After dinner, we drove another half an hour away from Puerto Vallarta to Lo de Marcos, a sleepy little fishing town (population about 1000), where my partner's parents have chosen to retire. Here, there are also a few foreigners, but it feels much more authentically Mexican. This morning, we took a walk on the beach, and we saw a few blowfish, a pelican, and a huge stingray (diameter about 14") that had washed up onto the shore. Black vultures were pecking away at the stingray but hopped away as we approached. (This would never happen near a resort.) We saw one couple as we walked away from the house and two more as we returned, and we greeted all of them with a smile and a 'Buenos dias' as we passed.

I enjoyed how deserted the beach was, and it made me (selfishly) wish no one else would come along. Of course, I don't agree with private beaches and think that Mexico does a good job of keeping its beaches accessible to all (at least in the places I've been), and it's silly to notice that the three couples we passed were foreigners-- because so were we.

I inquired as to how the locals felt about all of these Americans moving down to Mexico, and it sounded familiar: The Americans kept to themselves, the Mexicans kept to themselves, and there was a little mixing at the edges. (Venn diagrams come to mind.) The Mexicans were happy that the Americans brought money down with them, but there wasn't that much blending of cultures. Not yet (on the individual level), anyway.

Posting will probably be on hold through the holiday season, but stay tuned-- I'll be back with stories from Chile, Argentina and Uruguay when I return. Happy December!