Matador Network's Blog, page 2299

A winter weekend in Breckenridge, CO

BRECKENRIDGE IS ONE of several ski resorts that line Interstate 70 out of Denver. I confess to having skipped over it on previous occasions when I was headed west for a winter trip. But this old mining outpost, with a massive string of five skiable peaks and a historic downtown, continuously surprised me over a long weekend this past January.

Combining an average of 300 sunny days a year with a constant schedule of festivals and cultural events, Breckenridge offers a great mix of options for a winter weekend in one of the few remaining legit Colorado ski towns.

Brian’s trip was sponsored by GoBreck. All photos by author.

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After an easy flight from NYC and a quick shuttle from Denver International Airport to the condo, we made it just in time to catch a beautiful sunset fall on Bald Mountain.





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True to what they say, we got four bluebird days at Breck. And, unlike at a few nearby resorts, the mountain wasn't too crowded. This is the view from the Peak 8 SuperConnect, which zips from the base of Peak 9 to the top of Peak 8.





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Just a few weeks prior, Breckenridge had opened Peak 6, at the northernmost part of the range. This was the largest increase of any mountain anywhere over the past 10 years, adding 540 acres (a 23% increase) with plenty of intermediate alpine lines. Such a blast!




See more: Ullr Fest: Honoring the snow god in Breckenridge, CO




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Peak 6 also adds to the endless Rocky Mountain views I never tired of while at Breckenridge. This view always put a smile on my face.





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After two days on the mountain, Sunday was spent with a team of huskies, a sled, and our friendly guide, Charlie, at Good Times Adventures. It was the perfect way to explore the wilderness behind a team of true work dogs.





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Our guide didn’t wait long to get us on the sled. For the next hour, we traversed old mining roads, sped across frozen lakes, and had epic wipeouts as the dogs kept challenging us to lean hard around the corners.





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I was on the back of a snowmobile when not mushing the hounds. You don’t have to love dogs to appreciate their desire to work in harsh conditions. Our guide happily demonstrated that, with good training and plenty of affection, these guys really enjoy what they do.





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The town of Breckenridge has plenty to see and do. We spent every night eating well, hearing great music, and making friends. But on the last day we explored the many stores and shops on and off Main Street, stopping to appreciate the view from time to time.





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It seems like each month—even each week—Breckenridge has something to celebrate. We'd just missed Ullr Fest, but caught the International Snow Sculpture Championships, which took place in the middle of town. The 16 teams came from every corner of the world and had a few days to create frozen art out of a massive chunk of ice. The results were stunning!





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With the way the town is laid out, it can be difficult to get a good photograph of the mountain itself. We finally found a proper vantage point just east of Main Street, where Lincoln and Ridge Streets intersect—you can grab this view from the top floor of the parking garage. Another crystal clear day and a great end to a winter weekend in Breckenridge.

The post How to spend a perfect winter weekend in Breckenridge, CO appeared first on Matador Network.

Turks in Tulum: Best beach bash ever

Berlin’s Panorama Bar. Lollapalooza’s main stage set against Chicago’s skyline. The Mount Fuji Festival in Japan. In essence, they’re all musical experiences.

We usually rely on music and friends to have a good night, but a truly memorable party experience needs something else. It needs scenery.

Whoever survived the ’90s rave scene knows the feeling of stomping your feet on a dancefloor set within an amazing place. That’s the kind of experience the folks at Young Turks Records had in mind when they set up what might be the most amazing beach party ever. To celebrate a successful year for its crew, the label organized a New Year’s Eve rager at Tulum beach, on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.

Young Turks co-owner Caius Pawson tells Dazed magazine:

A year before we were in north London for the New Year’s Eve. It was cold and wet, and we promised never to do it again. So we organized it pretty much all on January 2, 2013. It was a collaboration between the Mexicans and us. We wouldn’t have been able to get the permits or to find the venue without local people working on it.

That’s how experimental dance music artists Four Tet, John Talabot, and FKA twigs met singer/producer Grimes and duo The xx (who’d just finished up a long world tour) for the occasion. The result was a three-day bash on one of the world’s most gorgeous beaches.

Enjoy. [image error]

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5 jumpstarts to beat writer's block

Photo: Zach Dischner

I’ll never forget the woman. She was impeccably groomed, everything about her pulled together. She slumped back against the wall of the writing conference room in Phoenix, tears streaming down her face.

“Can you help me?” she said. “I’m blocked. Can you please tell me how I can find 15 minutes in my day to write?” A young guy next to her, his hair in road-dusty dreadlocks, nodded. “Me too. I’m supposedly on my big writing adventure and I’m so busy there’s no writing — and no adventure.”

I was teaching a workshop on Writing From Place — in a college classroom so far from real place that I’d resorted to setting a chunk of obsidian, a pine bough, and a glass of water in the center of our circle. “Imagine,” I’d said, “that you are in a place in which there are minerals and plants and weather. Start with the weather and write from what is around you.” The 50 or so students had written steadily.

I asked the group how many of them had the same question as the woman and the young guy. All but three hands went up. I knew in that moment that it was time to explore more deeply the bedrock for writing: As a writer is in relation to her or his life, a writer is in relation to their writing. I began working with students not on fire or syntax, but on their dammed-up lives.

Here are five ways to blast the block apart. They look easy — kind of the way a sneaky route up a low-angle rock face can look easy, or that bubble line sweeping by the big boulder on the Colorado looks easy. If you have the guts — or the desperation — to try one, you’ll find out the real meaning of adrenaline rush.

1. Set an alarm for 20 minutes. Write steadily for the entire time.

Use this as an opening: “I have a story to tell.” Your writing could look like this: I have a story to tell. No I don’t. Oh fuck. Nothing’s coming. I feel like an idiot. Why did I start this? Okay go back. I have a story to tell…about…nothing…about the time I fell in love in the middle of the worst blizzard in Northern Arizona…

This tactic works. One of the students in my writing circle wrote blah blah blah for three pages. A year later, she beat me in a national writing contest.

2. Sharpen your equipment.

“If the literature we are reading does not wake us, why then do we read it? A literary work must be an ice axe to break the sea frozen inside us.” – Franz Kafka

You hold the ice axe of your stories, your knowledge, your memories of beauty, rage, and hope in your hand. You hold the axe of your road time. Begin with this prompt: “I will break through.” Write for 20 minutes without stopping.

3. Do nothing.

One of the best series ever to air on television was Northern Exposure. And one of the best episodes was about doing nothing. In it, the Tlingit medical assistant, Marilyn Whirlwind, challenges the young greenhorn doctor, Joel, to sit and do nothing. He leans back at his desk. A millisecond later, the camera zooms in on his hand — tapping frantically on the arm of his chair. I’m Joel. You’re Joel. The world we live in taps on us constantly.

Do nothing for 10 minutes. Do nothing without any drugs in your system. Don’t meditate — that’s doing something. When the time is up, write for 10 minutes. You won’t need a prompt. Reward yourself by hanging out with Marilyn and Joel (not the finger-tapping episode, but just as valuable.):

4. I can’t believe the colors.

You’ll need specialized equipment for this game: a notebook and pen or pencil. Leave your computer and go out into the world for at least 20 minutes. Pay attention to every shade of red that you see. Once you have finished your exploration, write down each red that you can remember. Close your eyes. Run your finger down the page and stop. Use whatever color you have touched to begin your 20 minutes of free-writing.

My free-writing can look like this: Garnet ribbon of light above the western mountains. Wait, I used that image before. Stop thinking, Mary. Stop censoring yourself. Okay. I’m hungry. I want to play a video game. Okay. Garnet ribbon of light about the western mountains. Jake remembered how She always saw poetry in everything. She was still “She”, as though She were the only woman in the world.

5. Meet the ghosts.

Ghosts hover between any writer and their stories. I’ve never met a writer who wasn’t haunted. The ghosts may never go away, but to meet and name them is the first step in no longer being ruled by their presence. The ghosts can be a person, a judgment, an invasion of your private words, an expectation, a prediction. The ghosts are anyone or anything that moved in between you and your writing.

Most of our ghosts come from our childhoods — the parent with whom you could never get it right; a mean teacher; an older brother or sister who was the shining star; the parent who read your private diary; the English instructor who read your writing to the class as an example of how not to write; the family in which secrets were never told; the parent who meddled in not just your writing, but your hopes for your writing; the parent who mocked your dreams of writing.

Later in life, the ghosts surround us, seemingly not the childhood hauntings, but the editor who loses the manuscript, the seemingly endless array of rejection letters, the agents and editors who, buried under impossible workloads, take a year to get back to the writer. But our more contemporary ghosts are only echoes of the messages of our childhoods.

Set your alarm for 10 minutes. Close your eyes. Let your imagination drift into your first meeting with your ghosts. At first you may find nothing. Then, perhaps a shape will begin to form. Be patient. When the ghost’s outline is recognizable, introduce yourself. When the meeting time is up, write for 10 minutes. Note: I might have lied about this jumpstart — it’s not easy. [image error]

Check out MatadorU for an in-depth opportunity to learn all the beta on travel writing. I also post jumpstarts every week on my website.

The post Writer’s block? 5 easy jumpstarts to get you flowing appeared first on Matador Network.

Powder for Powder, episode 1

This is episode 1 of a 5-part exclusive series, presented by Caldwell Collections and Matador Network. Learn more.

HITTING THE OPEN ROAD, loaded to the gills with gear, plans to live in a truck camper for two months — my brother and I knew this was a road trip of epic proportions that we didn’t want to let pass by, so we pulled the trigger and headed north to Alaska, with hopes of extending our winter as spring approached at home in Sun Valley, Idaho.

After finally committing to the trip, Yancy and I spent a week packing all the winter camping gear we could think of. We carefully put together a quiver of split boards, pow surfers, approach skis, and high-powered snowmobiles to prepare for any terrain conditions. Feeling equipped to tackle the Powder Highway, we blazed into Canada and pointed it towards Revelstoke, BC and the Monashee Mountains.

After a night in Nelson, we arrived in Revi for a few bluebird days following a 30-day storm cycle. Perfect timing to hit the Eagle Pass Heli operation during a scheduled photo shoot for Eddie Bauer/First Ascent. EPH lead guide Scott Newsome blew our minds wide open to what Canada had to offer for terrain options and snow conditions. Our First Ascent crew explored the high alpine zones by helicopter, capturing some amazing shots of our team. Scott runs a tight ship at Eagle Pass. With the motto “snowy days are the best days,” they can fly every day in whatever conditions.

Yancy and I couldn’t resist staying a few days longer to ride sleds above the Columbia River. The area turned out to have the deepest snow I’ve ever attempted to ride my submarine in; my 3.5ft snowmobile disappeared under the snow during each turn. Four feet of fresh powder was more than enough to get a real taste of British Columbia and the Monashees.

Words and photos by Wyatt Caldwell; video by Yancy Caldwell.

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BC powder
I scouted a fine place to launch off a cornice into a deep landing of BC powder. This photo was chosen for Eddie Bauer’s main snow ad campaign.





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Eagle Pass Heli
Scott Newsome of Eagle Pass Heliskiing says it will take years for him to set foot on all the unexplored terrain that lies within his permitted fly zone.





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Monashee pillowland
Our first glimpse of the Monashee Mountains and the winter wonderland of terrain that surrounds Revelstoke, BC.





Intermission





On the trail through the best ski country on earth: Stop 2, Revelstoke





Taking home on the road to follow the powder [VID]





Powder Highway road trip part 1: Storm riding in Fernie












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Drop zone
Scott bootpacks a trail to the drop zone just past an enormous cornice the size of a semi truck.





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Clear skies
Scott takes a minute to admire the view of his backyard, which has been socked in with storm clouds for the last 30 days.





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Monashee sunset
A classic Monashee sunset as the light hits the snow with that mango chutney glow.





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Sparkle
I love that golden moment when the fresh snowflakes lift off the trees and dance around in the light of approaching evening.





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Yancy on his sled
Deep turn after deep turn makes you forget you even have your snowboard strapped on the sled.





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River view
A windy logging road above the Columbia River quickly gave us access to the deep snow Revelstoke is famous for.





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Confluence
Yancy and I pause to appreciate the weather breaking for an evening view of the Columbia and the deepest snow I've ever ridden.

The post Powder for Powder, ep. 1: Monashee mission appeared first on Matador Network.

The business of bud in Alma, CO

Photo: Matthew Kenwrick

While budtender Mark “Buddy” Buddemeyer answers the phone, I check out the Dube Tubes, Zig Zag rolling papers, Cheech and Chong lighters, Clear Eyes drops, and other impulse-buy items near the register at Alma, Colorado’s High Country Healing II. A mason jar, which could be part of any county fair’s peach canning collection, holds buds of “Grape Ape,” the marijuana strain that took second place at the 2010 Aspen Cannabis Cup.

“If you’re going for recreational, you can’t buy clones, but if you’re medical, you can,” Buddy informs the caller.

Meanwhile, Bec Koop, another budtender, goes through the pot product line with an older white-haired customer in a North Face puffy jacket and a faded red beanie. He squints while checking out a particular offering.

“This is a fluffier bud,” Bec explains. “Your mind and body will be on the same pace.”

Eric Mills, a budtender and grower, sits in the back of the shop near a mini-fridge, eating a meal out of a red canvas Eddie Bauer lunchbox. Perched on his head is an LED “green” headlamp. Earlier, with a garden hose coiled over his shoulder, Eric had emerged from the growing room, which emanates a sort of Poltergeist “don’t-go-into-the-light” glow when the door is opened. Buddy had asked him to check the “ressie” levels (reservoir water levels of the soil-less growing containers).

The growing numbers

High Country Healing II (HCH2) grows more than 1,000 plants onsite for both the shop’s medical and recreational marijuana operations. Business has been steady with an average of 30-40 customers stopping in daily.

However, January 1, or “Green Wednesday,” the day when Colorado recreational marijuana shops opened, HCH2 saw more than 100 customers. While this was not the volume of people that Denver recreational shops experienced, with upwards of 400 customers and lines circling around city blocks in some cases, HCH2’s numbers are impressive, considering the population of Alma is under 300.

It’s high in Alma.

It’s hard not to read marijuana meaning into every store name, sign, and slogan in the small Colorado mountain town. A wooden sign that claims: “Historic Alma: North America’s HIGHEST incorporated town” greets you as you drive in (and “highest” really is displayed in all caps). Along the main drag, you’ll see “The Highest Boutique in America,” the “Highest Saloon in the USA,” and the local liquor store recommends that you “Grab some Buds.” Depending on the season, you may also see posters encouraging to you attend the 17th annual Festival in the Clouds.

For the most part, this language is inspired by the town’s elevation of 10,578 feet, but if any place is made for legitimate marijuana sales, it’s Alma. Rumored to be a tolerant place where aging hippies have been growing weed for years, the former mining town’s zip code is even 80420.

It’s legal and on video.

“It’s always been a green friendly town,” Buddy says when I ask him about Alma’s marijuana mystique. “It’s just always been some little secret.”

There are no secrets anymore, however, now that everything is legal and on video. At HCH2, strategically placed cameras film the budtenders daily. The footage, which is required of all recreational shops and medical dispensaries, is made accessible to Colorado’s Marijuana Enforcement Division (MED) so agents can monitor activities.

“Everything is tracked on the computer all the time,” Buddy explains. “The security system is on par with the Vegas gaming industry.”

I hesitate to take pictures of HCH2’s products and décor, but Buddy is unfazed. A laid back, affable guy, he poses for a photo next to the vintage record player on which they play music from the vast vinyl collection shelved in the waiting room. At the moment, however, a relentless, hypnotic techno song thumps in the store’s speakers and has been playing for at least 10 minutes. Although I haven’t consumed anything, I feel like lying down on the waiting room’s red velvet loveseat, which looks like it came from a bordello’s Wild West yard sale.

“So, have you guys been featured in High Times?” I ask, seeing several copies displayed, and a poster recognizing the 25th anniversary of the High Times Amsterdam Cannabis Cup hanging on the wall.

“Yeah, actually we have,” Buddy nods.

“That’s cool. When I was working for a budget travel guide on Europe, updating the Netherlands chapter in Amsterdam, I actually met Aran, the ‘Cannabis King,’” I tell Buddy. “He was the High Times Cannabis Cup winner like four years in a row. Well, back in the mid-’90s.”

“Oh, Arjan?” he says.

“Yeah, Arjan, I mean. Yeah that’s his name.” I feel my face reddening.

Who is a typical cannabis customer?

The bell on the door interrupts the techno and my failed attempt at being cool. A young Gothish woman with short spiked black hair, heavy black eyeliner, and a matching leather jacket walks in the shop. She looks straight ahead at the counter. Buddy greets and cards her.

“I need to see your ID.”

“Good. How are you?” the Goth Girl begins and then shakes her head. “I mean, yeah, sure.”

Buddy laughs good-naturedly at her flustered mistake. Handing him her driver’s license, Goth Girl lightens up. While they talk about basic information, I scan the pot and hash options on the dry-erase board — among the menu items: “Buddha’s Sister,” “Blue Widow HP,” “Super Lemon Haze,” “OG Kush,” and “Train Wreck.”

Photo: Kent Kanouse

In particular, I look for “Black Afghani,” my old nemesis from a night out in Amsterdam in 1989. After taking way too many hits of the hi-grade hash, I tried to synchronize my heartbeat to a band’s drumbeats during a concert at the Melkweg, a popular music venue. After I passed out on the people in front of me, my less stoned and anxious college friends dragged me out into the Melkweg’s cement entryway and dumped water on my face.

Buddy sends Goth Girl to the back to chat with Bec, and I wonder how old he was in 1989 — probably in the same age range that motivated MED to require the new opaque childproof bud containers and packaging.

“What’s the average age of your customers?” I ask.

“A lot of them are actually a little bit older — like in their 30s to 60s,” Buddy says. Many people who come in to HCH2 tried marijuana 20 or 30 years ago and want to get reacquainted with it.

The stigma still stands.

“Are people nervous when they come in?” I ask, since I had to reassure myself earlier that it was okay to enter HCH2’s cheery yet conspicuous mustard yellow building. The side of the shop displays a medical caduceus, overlaying a green cross along with the claim, “Serving the Earth Since 2727 BC,” so it’s obvious, even to tourists blowing through town on Highway 9, exactly what your intentions are when entering. Perhaps to remind you that this shop is, indeed, legitimate, a large Colorado state flag stands near the front door.

“People come in here, and, like what I was saying, they haven’t smoked in 10 or 20 years. They’ll be 50-something and their kids are in their 30s and they’re like: ‘Well, we can’t tell the kids.’ I tell them, ‘Don’t be ashamed. Don’t prolong this bad image of pot.’”

It’s definitely a cultural stigma that still exists. Colorado law states that residents 21 and over with a government-issued ID can purchase up to an ounce of marijuana for recreational use (per day) from a licensed store and grow up to six plants for private use. Out-of-state customers are permitted to buy up to seven grams (per day). Despite all of this being completely legal, and that, according to an October 2013 Gallup poll, 58% of Americans approve of marijuana legalization, many people in the US still view using marijuana as taboo.

According to Eric, who’s originally from Missouri, growing pot is the same as farming. “It’s just another plant,” he says. At the same time, Eric tells me he’s been saved by the Lord Jesus Christ and maintains, “This is God’s medicine to me.”

No matter whose medicine or pleasure, pot requires strict labeling for recreational sales. Budtenders secure each plant with a bar-coded baby blue label, which is technically a radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag. The mandatory tags track and store electronic data about the plants (not the customer) that the retail shop and MED can access. MED refers to this system as the Marijuana Inventory Tracking Solution (mitsTM).

“The new inventory system is a challenge, but it’s helping to tighten up everything,” maintains Buddy. “It’s forcing you to do good business.”

Ultimately, “It’s no big deal.”

Good business is what the residents of Alma want, too. In fact, ever since Amendment 64 passed, community members, led by HCH2 owner Mark January, held regular town meetings to figure out how to manage the industry.

So far, even according to the Alma Police Department, it seems to be working well. The APD’s town administrator (who did not want to be identified) hasn’t noticed any problems. “We’ve just been treating [HCH2] like any other business in town,” she says. “It’s a retail business, and they’re operating within the guidelines. It’s no big deal.” [image error]

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Welcome to the inside of a tornado

ON MAY 27th, 2013, a wedge tornado tore through northern Kansas. Meteorologist Brandon Ivey, protected by an armored car (which looks something like this), managed to record what it looks like to be inside the bowels of one of the most destructive forces of nature I know. How everything managed to stay in one place, I have no idea. The footage makes me wonder how anything survives a tornado, really.

The post 1 reason NOT to move to Kansas: This is what the inside of a tornado looks like appeared first on Matador Network.

Notes from Rwanda's church memorials

Photo: _rh

“I am the un-missionary…beginning each day on my knees, asking to be converted. Forgive me, Africa, according to thy multitude of mercies.”

- The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver

“How long have you known the Lord?” a young parishioner asks me after my first Sunday service at my host family’s church. I just explained to church members why I’m in Rwanda. “East African Politics,” I said, because it’s easier than nonchalantly dropping the phrase “genocide studies” into conversation, especially in a church.

“My whole life.”

“Wow. That’s so nice. I want to know the Lord like that.”

I want to tell him I’m burdened by my faith. I want to tell him the Bible he reads helped craft the genocide ideology that killed his family. I want to tell him his church is named Victory Mission for a reason. But I smile instead, grateful for his congregation’s hospitality.

It’s no wonder, then, that the genocide came to fruition in the very place where its message was first planted — the churches.

In the year 1900, Jesus, accompanied by German colonizers and then the Belgian government, arrived in Rwanda in the form of a white missionary. He held a Bible in one hand and a gun behind His back. Instead of His usual parables about the prodigal son and the woman’s search for her lost coin, He wove tales about power, telling the Tutsi people about their God-given right as superior humans. With this God-given right came the ability to rule over their brothers, the Hutus.

Tutsis, according to the widely held interpretation of the biblical story of Ham, were made in the image and likeness of God, except they had the misfortune of being clothed in skin the color of darkness. The Hutus, though, were humans of a lesser breed, possibly made as an afterthought on the last day of creation. Let the children come to me, He told them, but only the Tutsi ones.

Later, after World War II, inspired by theologies about social justice, Jesus and his Belgian disciples switched their allegiance to the Hutus. The Cains of Rwanda yearned for revenge against the Abels, and through the Church’s guidance, their will would soon be done.

It’s no wonder, then, that the genocide came to fruition in the very place where its message was first planted — the churches.

Nyamata

Our guide points to a small crucifix resting on the bloodstained altar. “This cross was used to kill people,” he says.

Photo: Author

Next to the cross lie a machete, a few rosaries, and ID cards used to differentiate Tutsis from Hutus. On the wall to the left of the altar sits a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

I wonder what horrors those stone eyes witnessed. How many died with a rosary in their hand and her name lingering on their lips? Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

They were the sacrificial lambs, killed in communion with one another, the body of Christ literally broken on the altar of the Lord.

Matted, soiled clothes of the dead sit in heaps scattered around the humble wooden pews of the small church, as if anticipating one last homily. Eventually, our guide gathers us near the back wall. He points out the blood on the wall and tells us that the Interahamwe dangled babies by their feet and bashed their heads into the wall. Then they raped the children’s mothers before finishing them off with machetes. The sound of schoolchildren’s laughter seeps through the grenade-studded, open doors and reverberates off the bricks marked with the remains of Rwandese children, children who are most likely relatives of the ones playing outside.

Then our guide leads us downstairs to a glass case filled with bones. In 2001, my parents took my sisters and me to Italy as part of a church choir tour; it was the ultimate Catholic pilgrimage, even concluding with an appearance by Pope John Paul II. Confused by the Catholic Church’s obsession with the remains of saints and popes, I nicknamed Italy, “The Home of the Dead Bodies,” an innocent observation for an 8-year-old fascinated with history and the intricacies of the Catholic Church.

But I was wrong. Rwanda is “The Home of the Dead Bodies.” Except these bodies are not relics to be fetishized. These bones are victims of genocide. I imagine the thousands of bones and clothes of Nyamata put on display at the Vatican, skulls gazing upward at the ceiling of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel. Would the world care then?

Ntarama

By the time we arrive in Ntarama on the same day, we are numb. It’s unfathomable that there is another church like Nyamata littered with shattered bodies that once tilled and breathed and rejoiced among these spectacular hills.

Photo: Greg Kendall-Ball

Even here, between the decaying bricks and coffins filled with the dead, it’s still impossible to imagine. I think that is what frightens me the most about this trip. I am here. And yet, I still struggle to imagine Rwanda in 1994. What about the people back home? How can they ever begin to imagine a time in history that only exists in their most feverish nightmares?

Our tour ends in the former nursery school. Once again, our tour guide points out the blood and brain mixture still sticking to the walls of the building. Once again, he demonstrates how small, innocent bodies were thrown against the bricks.

It is a different church. A different tour guide. Different souls. But the same calculated method of killing. Our tour guide picks up a stick; it must be at least seven feet long. He explains how the stick was shoved inside a woman’s body, reaching all the way to her head. And then they killed her. I find myself thankful she died.

A group of villagers watches us process back to the bus. I avoid eye contact with them, embarrassed that I have made a spectacle of their home and their dead. “Now you come,” their eyes seem to say. “Now you come with your cameras and your passports. Well now it’s too late.”

Soon after our visit to Nyamata and Ntarama, I attend church with my host family again. “He will save us. He will save us. He will save us,” the congregation chants. If there was a time for the Savior’s second coming, it was in April of 1994, but He never came. What makes them think He will save them now?

Kibeho

“How old were you in ’94?” Sister Macrine asks me as we walk towards Kibeho Parish. I’m in Kibeho as a part of an independent study project, researching the building’s dual role as a memorial and active church. I’m hyper-aware that this trip is a pseudo-pilgrimage, my twisted, yet academically driven way of confronting my faith crisis.

“Only a year old.”

“Ahhh, so young,” she says half laughing.

“Do you know why it is still a church instead of a memorial?” I ask, even though I know the answer. Kibeho Parish is not a memorial like Nyamata and Ntarama because the Vatican is embarrassed about the Church’s complicity during the genocide. Instead, the Rwandan government and the Catholic Church compromised, hiding a small memorial behind locked doors. An open memorial would mean confessing the Church’s sins. And though they may promote the sacrament of reconciliation, the Vatican doesn’t always practice what they preach.

“I don’t know,” she says.

I can tell my obsession with the Parish confuses her, even pains her. She can’t understand why I’m not here to pray at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Word, the church down the road, where in the 1980s the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to three Rwandan school girls, and at the Holy Mother’s request, the church was built in her honor. She can’t understand why I’m not like the rest of Kibeho’s pilgrims who come searching for divine intervention. If only she knew that I have come to Kibeho hoping for a miracle as well.

She tells me she doesn’t like going into the crypt. I assure her multiple times that I can go alone, but she comes anyway.

“Don’t cry,” she says before we step down into the cellar filled with shelves stacked neatly with bones.

White, lace-fringed curtains covering the shelves curl in the breeze, revealing skulls that once bore the faces of Kibeho residents. I pull open one of the curtains to find entire bodies encased in white powder, similar to the victims of Murambi, a former vocational school now a memorial. Small, patchy tufts of black hair cling to some of the bodies’ skulls, and even though the sight mimics Murambi, it still surprises me; for some reason, I’ve always associated hair with life.

Next, she takes me to the Parish to pray. A plaque on the looming, desecrated building states the church was established in 1943. That same year, oceans away, the Nazis had already infiltrated remote Polish towns, and erected chambers and barracks that would soon house the Jews of Europe. Half a century later, Kibeho Parish would serve the same function, except this time, the killers were so sure of themselves they wanted God as their witness.

I that I would feel angry inside the building that betrayed more than 25,000 Tutsis. I thought I would be able to feel the spirits of the dead, dancing around me, haunting the humans thoughtless enough to ignore their presence. But I feel nothing.

I’m jealous of my classmates who came to Rwanda with no belief in God. They have nothing to lose. [image error]

The post “Do this in memory of me”: Reflections from 3 of Rwanda’s church memorials appeared first on Matador Network.

How to piss off someone from Wales

Photo: David Jones 大卫 琼斯

Suggest that Wales is part of England.

Here are some facts:

he UK is a country made up of four countries. Only one of which is England.
England and the UK are not synonyms. They never have been.
If you refer to a Welsh person as English, the UK as England, or say that “Wales and England are basically the same,” a Welsh person will definitely punch you in the gob.

While we’re on this point — England, we’re looking at you — Wales is a country and not a principality. You can check Wikipedia and everything.

Try pronouncing Welsh words you saw somewhere once.

I’m not even going to start on people saying the Welsh language is an unattractive glottal minefield of nasal mutations and missing vowels. Because while it may sound like your mongrel dog is being sick on the carpet again, Rover is our mutt, and we’re trying damn hard to keep the bastard alive.

If you speak Welsh, I applaud you. We need more people like you. On the other hand, if you haven’t studied it, been forced to speak it by nagging relatives, or been plagued by bilingual announcements every day of your life, then you probably are not very good at pronouncing our native tongue. If you still pronounce “Pontypridd” as “Pontyprid,” “Cathays” as “Cathys,” and “Cymru” as some mess of sounds similar to “Psymeroo,” then please don’t even try. You’re impressing no one.

But here are some hints for you: The ‘dd’ is more like an English ‘th,’ the ‘ch’ is a bit like that noise that Donald Duck makes when he’s angry, and the ‘ll’ is the hiss your cat Babwyn makes when you try and put him in the bath.

Point out the Welsh minute.

In Wales, everything that ever has, is, or ever will happen, happened / is happening / will happen “now, in a minute.” Please don’t point out to us the grammatical contradiction in that something can’t happen now and also in a minute, for you mere mortal do not understand the Welsh minute.

The Welsh minute is somewhere between immediately and within the next year. For example, you can be eating your scorching hot Welsh cakes “now, in a minute” (immediately while scolding your mouth), take out the recycling before the binmen come “now, in a minute” (sometime this evening probably), and also go on that long-awaited weekend away to Tenby that Gwyn recommended “now, in a minute” (in August), for the Welsh minute is not limited to your flimsy perception of what 60 seconds really is. The Welsh minute is infinite, it is eternal.

While we’re at it, we know our coats and jackets can’t be “hanging” on the floor, but we just like to think of them as such.

Criticize the Welsh accent.

Sadly, this one may just be about me. With three years at university in England, three years spent living abroad, plus an English father (we don’t like to talk about him), my accent has morphed and changed as the years go on. However, whenever I’m home, and I speak with my sister in particular, my accent goes back to what it always was, virtually incomprehensible to anyone from outside where I grew up.

I’m from Cardiff. While many Welshies would argue this isn’t ‘proper’ Wales, I would urge you to accept me as one of your own. I, after all, went through 12 years of Welsh language education like the rest of you.

When you, Welsh and non-Welsh folk alike, tell me my accent isn’t Welsh, I hasten to point out that we can’t all have that delightful sing-song dialect of the valleys. Unfortunately, some of us have this sort of throaty, chavy Cardiff / Newport accent and others, even more unfortunately, have that nasal North Walian drawl. But we all do have Welsh accents. It’s just not the one you’re thinking of.

Quote Gavin and Stacey

Oh, how we laughed when James Corden was angry about onion bhajis, or when Ruth Jones implied she’d fingered herself, or something like that. Okay, is this where I can safely admit I’ve never even seen the show? Despite being proud of Ruth Jones’ achievements as one of our nation’s best comediennes, she did unwittingly destroy a little part of being Welsh for me. Even nearly five years since the finale aired, the show’s traumatizing legacy lingers in the hearts of its fans.

I have to admit that while I was curious to watch a show labelled as one of the best things to echo Welsh life since Twin Town, and had people wetting their pants even just reminiscing about past episodes, I never even dipped in a toe.

So no, sorry, I may be Welsh, but I’m not called “Bryn,” I am not flattered when you tell me that, as a fairly unreserved woman, I am “just like Nessa,” and finally, and I think above all, I don’t know “What’s occurring?” But I do know what will be reoccurring if you ask me that question, and that is a fist meeting your face over and over again.

Say, “My mom is Welsh.”

Oh, really? Where did she grow up? Because if it wasn’t somewhere within the Welsh borders then, I’m sorry, but she does not belong to the Land of our Fathers and neither do you.

We don’t give a flying fuck if you have some sort of Welsh ancestry somewhere way back when, or how you’re distantly related to some Welshman you don’t even know the name of. I’m sorry, but we just don’t.

Assume England is better than Wales, mainly because it’s bigger.

Sitting atop Mt. Snowden, in one of Wales’ beautiful national parks, trying to spot the world-famous railway station Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch in the distance, popping a couple pills I got free on prescription, admiring the degree I got for free after studying at my Welsh university, my cariad (sweetheart) and I drink Brains as we idly chat about the fun we had at our childhood Eisteddfods, our last two Six Nations wins, and how proud we are that Bale refuses to play for England, and I ponder the question, “Is England better than Wales?”

The answer is simply, no. Because no country is ‘better’ than any other country.

Arguing that England is better than Wales just because it’s bigger and has more people and more money is really just reaffirming our belief that the English are cultureless morons. If bigger always meant better, we’d still be carrying around those comically sized phones from the ’80s.

Wales is not better than England, and England is not better than Wales, but if you were going to ask me which country I’d prefer to live in, I would have to pick the one that warms my heart, and fails to destroy my soul. I would have to pick Wales. [image error]

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Music to veto to

LAST NIGHT, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer vetoed SB 1062, a bill that would have given businesses the right to turn away gay customers on the grounds that serving them could violate merchants’ religious freedom. In honor of the governor’s rare moment of insight, I want to share a special track. I’m typically not a fan of the rapper Macklemore, but his song “Same Love” gets a fresh update by artist Angel Haze.

Known for spitting quick verses over menacing beats, she slows down here to confess her own painful coming out story. She begins, “Hi Mom, I’m really scared right now,” — a hint of vulnerability beneath an otherwise badass image. “At age 13 my mom knew I wasn’t straight,” she says, later adding, “she sat me down on the couch, looked me straight in my face, and said you’ll burn in hell or probably die of AIDS.”

The message is that political, social, and legal forms of discrimination against LGBTQ folks needs to stop. Angel Haze is over it, and it’s time for some pockets of American society to catch up. “It’s funny now,” she raps. “But at age 13 it was pain. To be almost sure of who you are and have it ripped away.”

The post Music to celebrate the veto of Arizona’s anti-gay bill appeared first on Matador Network.

Where does your travel story begin?

Photo: Sebastiano Pitruzzello

“Every story is a physical map of how to travel from one place to another. Some places are physical; others are not.”

- Don Rowlands, Aboriginal elder and ranger at Munga-Thirri National Park in Australia

This is the final part of a 5-part series, Transforming your travel writing.

WHAT DEFINES A STORY? Each of us has a slightly different interpretation. What I’ve found over the years is that whether methods of storytelling are visual — photography or video — or through writing, all powerful stories share a common quality, something evoked by Rowlands’ definition above: They express movement. The narrator isn’t describing a static place but a world in motion. Or the image compels your eyes to move all over, rendering the story through the interplay of subject and background.

And this movement isn’t limited to physical movement, but a sense of temporality, or time itself moving. Of characters in the midst of experiences and events to which there’s a clear before and after. There is a feeling, as is often said of a successful photograph, of “capturing a moment” in the characters’ lives, revealing their emotions, presenting the story map of their place and culture in a way that shows how things are always changing, always moving around them.

Even simple blog posts, which one might not think of as stories, can be snapshots of thoughts and emotions that contain this sense of movement.

You can also turn this element of movement outwards towards the audience. What effect should your image, your video, your story have? Ultimately we want the reader or viewer herself to be moved. We want that sense of temporality to be powerful enough to enclose the audience, so that when we’re finally released, we come away with new emotions — inspiration, outrage, encouragement, empathy, celebration — all of which can lead to actual movement in our lives — trying something new, booking a flight somewhere, deciding to volunteer, take action. This is when digital storytelling becomes an art form.

Locating ourselves

One way to further understand temporality or movement is to look at the concept of locating ourselves. Throughout life, our familiar routines, environment, and day-to-day activities undergo moments of turbulence, change. Moving to a new city. Quitting an old job and starting a new one. Traveling. Losing a loved one. Getting married. Giving birth to a child. Experiencing health problems. Accomplishing important projects. As we transition through these large-scale changes, we undergo a process of locating ourselves in a new reality. There’s both a physical and emotional adjustment period.

Even our daily lives can be seen as a minute-by-minute experience of locating ourselves. Again, it’s physical: Going out to a new restaurant, literally choosing where to sit, noting who is there, studying what’s on the menu. But it’s also emotional, a process of registering our feelings (anxiety? joy? boredom? curiosity?) as we sit down, eat, converse, interact with the company. In some ways each time we wake up, have our morning rituals, look out the window, think about the day’s schedule, we go back through the process of locating ourselves.

Notice how this process encompasses all different measures of time, or as described above, a sense of temporality. Locating ourselves contains the “now” we’re experiencing this very second, but is influenced by the whole arc of our lives, the series of decisions, actions, and patterns that brought us to this moment.

Photo: Chris JL

This is especially important when considering other characters. When you observe people — say, the patrons of your local cafe — how much of their stories are you actually seeing? A distrait young mom with her legs pulled up in a yoga pose, scrolling through her phone while her daughter plays absentmindedly with a spoon. A man in his 70s with a scarf loose around his neck, solemnly reading the newspaper. An anxious-looking late-middle-aged woman reaching into her bag and pulling out a folder, presenting it to a woman across the table.

If we only look at them in this one moment, we tend to see one-dimensional figures, stereotypes. The yoga mom. The retiree. The saleswoman. But if we could learn how these people are themselves located in this particular moment in time, then we start to see people we can identify with through their stories. Say the young woman is just entering a trial separation from her husband, and is waiting for a girlfriend to arrive, debating whether or not to tell her. Or the retiree has just made the decision to sell his home in the neighborhood and move into assisted living. Or the saleswoman has received bad news about her health earlier that morning, and as she pitches a potential client, she can’t believe she’s actually there working, pretending to be OK, when inside she wants to cry, revolt, escape.

What makes stories resonate with us is that we’re able to inhabit a different temporality for a while. Even just stopping to gaze at a photo can become a kind of transport into another set of emotions. And so by paying attention to how we locate ourselves — and how other people are surely in the process of locating themselves as well — we begin to see potential stories everywhere and how they fit together.

Where you are right now

In addition to looking at how to locate ourselves through different points of time, we can also look at “location” in a literal sense: registering exactly where we are geographically, physically. Consider right now in this present moment. Where are you located exactly? Not just a street address but within the greater geography of the region? If you could map out the local watershed, where are you right now within the branches of creeks and rivers, estuaries and ocean? Where does the water come from? Where does it go? What is upstream and downstream?

Without checking smartphones or other devices, do you know which way is north? Point to it. From where do prevailing winds blow? What phase is the moon in? Where in the horizon will it be coming up tonight, or setting?

What is the name of the street you’re on? The town or city? Who gave it that name? What does that name mean? Who was there before you? What is the history of the room you’re in right now? The lot your house or building is on?

Do you see how this can trigger a story?

As your write, continually circle back to these concepts again and again:

1. How do you show where you (and other characters) are located?

2. How do you portray your life (and other characters’ lives) through certain moments in time?

When you figure out the answer to those two questions, you have your story. [image error]

Editor’s note: This lesson is excerpted from new and forthcoming curricula for the Travel Writing course at MatadorU.

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