A poem, with Love

---

From Zamorano, a university that is a country within a country...


I don´t have homework so my mind is free
to think about whatever it is I need or please
I don´t have people telling me how to act, no rules
no one saying No No NO! I´m not in school
It´s been so much better for me to grow
to learn, my soil is fertile so I sow
the seeds of what I want to be, first they flower
then when they´re ripe I eat the fruits for power
constant crop rotation keeps my soil from wearing out
and the variety is what life is all about
it keeps it fresh and interesting, always transforming
my garden inside grows even while it´s storming
both sunshine and rain are needed to cultivate
love and hate, the humble and the great...
just let things grow, that´s their natural way
let them go, do nothing, and enjoy your stay.

In this universe I do nothing at all
but nothing is not done, the sun will rise and fall
the stars will light and die and no one knows why
it´s just the way of the earth and the way of the sky
all the bad in the world, let it work itself out
it´s not up to me to save everyone anyhow
I truly believe mankind will prevail
we won´t be wiped out by some nuclear hail
that just what I feel and know in my heart
and if we do all die, there will be a new start
but that´s nothing to think of--extinction
it´s a lack of something, so it´s not worth thinking
for everything I give up, I find so much more
things more precious than what I had before
there are far better things, such far better things
life is worth so much more than gold and diamond rings.

As I´ve travelled at first I thought I´d discover
my true self, but the more that I learn, I uncover
mysteries I never knew about and more questions
so I end up having to learn even more lessons
when you adventure you´re free of society´s constraints
so you can be how you want to be with no restraints
are you then not yourself or is it not you at home?
Look--you don´t know me unless you met me while I roamed
then our dreams can come true, nothing we can´t do
but we also change into--we don´t know who
cause everywhere you go you lose your old beliefs
your self becomes detatched like a fall leaf
blown about by the wind, eventually you break up
into smaller pieces but at the same time you wake up
when you set off you must know you will never be the same
but it still blows your mind to see how much you´ve changed.

I leave leaf parts of me everywhere I go
learn about things I never knew I´d know
I´m so lost and yet so found, hear the sound
of the wind in the tree´s leaves as they dance around
it´s such a challenge yet we move on to the future
never know what tomorrow brings, alwyas surprises
I sleep thru sunrises and ponder sunsets
each day feels so full, and it´s far from over yet.
My hear overflows with beautiful emotions
I´m overwhelmed with happiness and passion like it´s the ocean
I just checked my watch and it was 10:08
then all is perfect, I have entered a holy state
cause that´s my special time, when all is complete
satisfied with how I am, everything is sweet.
I´m breathing slow and even though I have a little cold
I feel so healthy in the core of my soul
I look inside, delighted by what I see
so glad I can have beauty and peace inside of me.


i dedicate this to lena. Thank you for having me!
I´ll tell more about the uni and my experiences there later. Today I go, so I have to say goodbye!

Colin


Now it´s time to tell you about my adventures. Well, from Utila, I went with Luke, and we stayed in San Pedro. This time my experience there was completely different--we were in a hostel in a different part of the city and it was totally different. I was making my way to Tegucigalpa to meet my friend Lena, whom I met in Utila. She told me some stories about her uni and it sounded really cool, tho I was only understanding everything in spanish partially. I was curious...little did I know how great it would be.

Upon arriving to Tegucigalpa I was faced with one of the most fundamental questions of my existence--who´s gunna buy me a snack. I met a few people, but no one was buying me a snack. So I was out of luck, as you might say. But then the next day, Lena came and we hung out...She had snacks! She had some chips. I was having a little cold, so I really needed it. We walked around the capital, and it was lots of fun. We went into the garifuna culture place and learned about that. The people there were really nice and they showed us around and told us all about it. I have some pics from that.

Next day, we headed off to Zamorano. I got there and stayed in the hotel, which was expensive. But it was nice. With my cold, I was tired and feeling kinda funny, but I was just ignoring it. Why worry about it? That first day, we just walked around zamorano, Lena and I, and she showed me all the different fruit trees and taught me how coffee is made, for instance. We ate a bunch of nuts, and it was like being in the garden of eden--it´s so beautiful there. Nice fields filled with trees of fruit. Mountains all around. Plus on their campus they have about 70 thousand hectares or something. I heard it is the biggest uni in the world. THe students there learn about all kinds of things involved with food--milking cows, making cheese, slaughtering and castrating pigs, giving birth to cows (they don´t do that themselves, but they have to watch the cow give birth. And get this, I heard that when a cow is going to give birth, a first year student is assigned to the cow. THey have to follow the cow around everywhere it goes, into the mountains far away. One year, this girl was sick, and so she had to walk back to the hospital four hours. She got treatment on IV for about 3 hours, then they told her she had to walk right back, or she wouldn´t graduate. The girl walked back!) They fight fires. A few people here die each school I heard, it is pretty risky. Also people from all over central america come to this school, it´s like the tops, also they have people from bolivia and columbia. I spent lots of time hanging out with the bolivians, because Lena was from there. They were great!

The next day lena and I went into the mountains not really knowing where we were going. She wanted to go to this special spot, but we were lost. I said, who cares, look where we are, I´m happy with it. Because I´d never seen these mountains, and they looked astonishingly like boulder. Also the ride from Teguc to Zamorano, about and hour, the scenery was so much like around boulder, I couldn´t tell if I was in colorado or Honduras. But summer colorado. So back to the hike. We just did some quality bushwacking, just the way I like. We were going up some pretty rugged terrain, and then the bush got too thick, and we were just trying to summit this little hill for a view, but no matter how we tried, the brush got the best of us. We got all scratched and got hitchers all over our clothes. But it was great fun.

When we got back there was a dance festival, where the first year students put on dances from their country, and sing traditional songs. So that was highly amusing! Then we went to dinner, and I got into the cafeteria, because it was the first day classes were starting, well, the next day. It was sunday and they began monday.

So, monday, I went with Jerome, a great guy from holland, and he showed me around the campus further, telling me all about it. It was quite fascinating, and I was getting the bomb tour. We went and saw the goats, cows, and then we saw smoke coming up. There was a fire! We would have to go explore. We kept going towards the smoke, looking out for our escape in case we should find the flames at our side. Finally, we were really close. We were walking by the sugar cane, where the fire seemed to be. The wind was blowing it towards us. I looked up and saw that the smoke was cutting off our retreat trail. I was like, run! It´s coming our way. We started running down the road, and I looked up and saw flames jumping 30 feet into the air! And they were right coming our way. So we kept running, and right as we made it to the corner you can see, a guy was coming around with a flame torch, starting the fire. It was a controlled fire, but we were almost in a spot you don´t want to be! Those flames were hot! So that was awesome.

Also on the way there we saw this incredible bird. And on the way back, we saw a scorpion running on the road, doing his thing. I was always really impressed by the beauty of the campus. I feel really lucky to have visited those great people and seen where they get to school. I am truly humbled.

Then next day, our brilliant idea was that I would go to class and see how that is. I got dressed up in one of jermoe´s extra uniforms, and off we went. It was funny sitting in class with everyone, and I remembered why i hated school. School isn´t my thing. But at this school, half the week is class, the rest, work. They actually put everything into practice. The first class bored me, but the second, i was really interested in. It was about surveying, so the students are going to go survey and learn everything first hand. That´s more like my kind of school. But while in class, I did what I´ve always done in school--wrote a poem, and generally slacked off. At least the first class...I admit I took notes the second one.

After Zamorano, I went up to La Tigre. That was another fantastic experience, and you can see my pics from there. After that, I went back to Zamorano, to say hi to everyone before I headed down to nicaragua, that´s where I am now. I stayed two nights in a hotel, and then Jerome told me he had a free bed in his room and I could crash with him. He was very gracious. I stayed two more nights the first time. Then when I got back after la tigre (which was a very soothing trip) I felt so out of place at zamorano. It was weird coming back, school had started, and everyone was all involved in it. I walked around for a while, feeling I had no place. Also I couldn´t find Jerome, so I had no place to stay but the hotel, and I didn´t really want to stay there. But then Lena and I went to see if Jerome was there, and he was, and I grabbed a uniform from him and there I was in the cafeteria, in my uniform. I have to say, I felt much more in place in that uniform. That thing could work wonders...we were too late for dinner, but now I had found my place, at least for the weekend.
I´m going to say more about la tigre maybe in another place. I guess my poems say a lot.
I´ve been thinking lately I don´t take stories so much as songs. Yes, there are stories, but the songs are the things that help me remember the places I´ve been and the feelings I was having there.

As for the waterfall granting wishes, man did it ever! I have a terrible cough now and I get all these spasms every night when trying to sleep and it´s been going on almost a few weeks. So I think maybe I have wooping cough. Well, you asked for the hard times, you got em! But everything happens for a reason, so I find even the hard times have the utility, especially for teaching you things.

No I made it down to Managua. It´s not the best city to tourist, but that´s been great, I´ve achieved some life goals I had been putting off for quite a while, like getting a haircut. Also, putting my pics up and updating my blog some. So It´s nice there isn´t too much to do here. I was trying to achieve nearly nothing, and I think that I accomplished it. My first night here, I was at the farmacy getting some cough drops, so I could maybe sleep better. I met this girl there from nicaragua. we started talking and I told her I needed some water. She said, OK, get in my car I´ll drive you up there. She had a pretty nice car and looked like a nice girl, so I trusted her. She turned out to be real friendly, and the next night I went out to dinner with her and a friend, and we drove around the city and she showed me the center and all. We went to pizza hut! She said we should get cheese sticks, because I need to try all the nicaraguan food. That nica food is good!

I had a few deep thoughts in the jungle--these things will happen. Well, I guess I will leave you with those.

¨That´s my star there,¨I told her, pointing. ¨Which one?¨
¨Well, actually it´s more like two stars, moving across the sky, with a flashing red one in the middle.¨She looked at me and said, ¨That´s an airplane.¨So it was. I still had so much to learn about love.

When I saw the sloth, I said to him, hey man, you know, you and me are a lot alike. We both move really slow and spend all day gathering food. We both live in trees. And we both mate once a year with a female sloth in order to make little, baby sloths.

Peace!
Colin

---

Photos

Bushwackin
Our hands got black from the charcol. The students learn to fight fires in these mountains. Last year a girl died in a fire!

Good ol tegucigalpa
once I went to managua, the capital of nicaragua, Teguc felt pretty cozy...

The guy on the right
He´s the ultimate Garifuna. He is holy and has magic powers, he can help people from wherever he is, and he can just think something and it will happen. The guy told us, this culture center we were in, that was this guys will, his thought. COol huh?

Coffee
Lena teaches me about things I never knew, like how coffee is made.

our feast
these were so good, whatever they were. Then we ate a bunch of macadamia nuts fresh. MMM! As a kid I always liked picking berries, gathering food, all that. Nothing is really more satisfying. It´s a primal urge in us.

my room in tegucigalpa
I had a room with a view. But Zamorano is about an hour from Teguc...thank goodness!

Toxic fruit, yet delicious
this fruit is great if you eat it at just the right time. A little early or late, and you will die. They have barbed wire fences and cameras on it, because someone died from it!

cafeteria
so many ways to die at zamorano. I didn´t think the cafeteria food was on of them, but the way some of these kids didn´t like it, maybe it could...oh yeah, there were lots of ghosts on campus too, from rooms where people stayed who died. No one could live in those rooms, esp the one where the twin sisters committed suicide...

roughin it
this was a tough hike. Plus the brush got thick. We never made it to the top. It was stil an adventure though.

Looking down on Zamorano
Up here in the mountains, the only rules are those you create yourself. Now that´s more my pace.