Venice is Sinking!

Saturday, February 20th, 2010
The Georgetown Ballroom

Party with a purpose is back!
Don’t miss the best Carnival party in Seattle

Tickets go on sale Nov. 1
$50 On-line before Feb. 16
$65 At the door

LIVE Performers include:

Darek Mazzone- KEXP World Pop DJ Geoffrey Castle; violinist extraordinaire Opening band with samba dance music Circus troupe performers, aerialists, burlesque and more

Carnival Mask and dress required for entrance. Masks sold at the door.

A benefit for education development in Nepal and Crooked Trails

Last chance to travel with Crooked Trails this year to Central America or the Himalayas!

We still have room on two of our fantastic programs to Guatemala and Nepal. The focus of our Nepal program is to build a school in the Kavre district. Over the past two years with the generous support of Crooked trails donors we have been able to raise just over $12,000 and we are heading to Nepal this November 14th over the thanksgiving holiday to put the money to good use.

Help us replaces this school!

If you are able to make a last minute decision to travel with a purpose then I invite you to join on us on this remarkable opportunity to better the lives of Nepalese children. The cost is only $1980 and it’s a tax deductible expense as you will be volunteering your time to help build the school. CT executive director Chris Mackay will be leading this trip and will be accompanied by board president Tracy Klinkroth. Contact us now for info and be spontaneous!

GUATEMALA

Dec. 26- Jan 4 $1490

…..what the trip will be like from your guide Tad Bradley

The current itinerary will give you a wonderful taste of Guatemala. It focuses on the Western Highlands and Pacific Lowland regions. We visit the impressive ancient Mayan site: Tak'alik Ab'aj. It is extremely well preserved and, as archaeological work is currently in progress, there are always new pieces being uncovered. While in the lowlands, we will spend several days staying in the cooperative farm Finca Alianza: http://www.aidg.org/outreach/featured_projects.htm Here we will spend time with several of the families and learn about their farming techniques for coffee, bananas and macadamia nuts. We'll also tour several water and sustainable energy projects run by the local community. From there, we move into the cooler Western Highlands, with stops in Xela, where we visit a local orphanage. From Xela, we make a stop at the famous market town of Chichicastanengo - this is one of the best places to shop in Guatemala. You will find many colorful Guatemalan textiles here! Finally, we spend several days on Lake Atitlan in a wonderful town that is off the beaten tourist trail - San Juan La Laguna. There are several women's weaving cooperatives in town. We will spend an afternoon with the women, learning how to weave in the traditional Mayan way. There will be time in San Juan for relaxation and independent exploration as desired. Our last stop is in the famous colonial town of Antigua. Accommodations are varied but all comfortable and representative of the local community. We always stay in locally-owned hotels and in some cases with families themselves. We will employ several local Guatemala guides along the trip. I use a locally owned bus transport company. We will travel in a private, air-conditioned mini-bus or van. See below for examples of some of the places we will stay

San Juan:
http://www.atitlan.uxlabil.com/

Xela:
http://hotelmodelo1892.com/

Trip price is only $1490

Festival in Peru

By Kris Parfitt –Crooked Trails traveler

Stepping through the doorway, I noticed my friends were no longer in the courtyard, yet music trailed down many of the narrow streets beckoning me to follow. There were drums in the plaza far off to my right and brassy horns echoing off the cobblestones around the corner to my left. Not knowing which direction my companions had taken added depth to this simple experience – I spoke just enough broken-Spanish to confuse the locals and too much English to be able to quickly remember which words they wouldn’t understand.

It was late afternoon in Chinchero, Peru and my friends and I were visiting during the village’s annual Patron Saint festival with one of Crooked Trails’ founders, Tammy Leland.  We had been invited by the Paulima and Vilma, founders of Minka Chinchero Weavers Cooperative, to be their guests of honor during the festival.  Tammy, and many years of Crooked Trail’s clients have been instrumental in helping to support weaving cooperative and the newly finished girls boarding school, La Casa de Las Ninas.  Mama Fagustina, the elder Quechua grandmother and mother of Vilma who was sponsoring this year’s festival had invited us to join her at the cemetery to honor the life of her late husband Juan. 

A group of children trying to sell hats and finger puppets approached me as I looked up towards the plaza and then down the canyon-like street of stucco and cobble. “Donde esta Mama Fagustina?” I asked them – hoping I’d used the right words for “Where is”.

I scanned the procession of musicians, dancers and villagers looking for the back of a familiar head. I did not immediately recognize anyone from my group, but the call of the horns had me curious so I followed. Knowing the village was small and being one of the few visiting Crooked Trails travelers, if in finding myself lost I had confidence through faulty language, pantomimes and smiles that I would eventually reconnect with the familiarity of Velma and Paulima’s villa.

I hurried behind an elder Chinchero woman dressed in traditional Andean fashion carrying a large bundle of something on her back in a hand-woven blanket – I was aware, as I caught up to her, how much taller I was than the woman yet even with my long legs it took a concentrated effort to keep up with her pace. She was not a part of the procession yet she was indifferent to the music and celebration as though this happened everyday all the time. As I hurried my pace to keep in step with the woman, I glanced again around this colorful parade to see if I recognized my friends. 

Colorful feathered costumes of gold, white and red caught my attention as did the ever growing band of musicians. I looked farther up the street to the lines of villagers holding hands while dancing to the music and although I recognize no one, I did not feel alone.
Now at a fast trot, the woman and I skirted the band and costumed dancers. Her destination and haste was unknown to me, but I wanted to capture this experience so fished my camera out of its bag. Undaunted by my dead battery I changed it while close on the heels of my Ketchua Wonder Woman and within moments I was recording her, the horns and procession.

Finally relinquishing my chase I slipped behind the costumed dancers and between the musicians and marveled at this experience. Despite the apparent absence of my friends I was beyond thrilled! This was extraordinary! The energy of the people was incredibly welcoming. As I filmed the procession several teenage boys dressed as Inca Mountain Guards grabbed my hands and pulled me into the crowd. They eagerly watched my face for a reaction and my laughter and twinkling eyes put them at ease as we giggled and sang our way among other strings of people doing the same un-choreographed dance.

Suddenly I spotted Dan, Mama Fagustina and her grandson Raul at the very front of our parade. Dan and I grinned at each other over the dark-haired heads of the villagers.  Then I began to recognize quite a few other friends around me!   Grins and glances connected our thoughts – what an honor and a privilege to be welcomed into such an expression of tradition. We were not tourists, we were family!  Holding tight the hands of my new-found brothers I ran ahead pulling them behind me. Suddenly I stopped and roared with laughter as they tumbled ahead, both sides caught in a sudden game of crack the whip.  It must be a universal game for they knew the rules and off we sped around the other lines of people to pull, stop, and crack!

Chinchero is located in the high Peruvian Andes about thirteen thousand feet where the air is crisp and thin yet sparkles with a curious vibrancy. It snaps and crackles with tradition, ancestors, easy laughter, children, food, Inca ruins and intense color.  It smells of smoke, meat, straw, mud, urine, wool and sweat.  This village wears community like a thickly woven alpaca blanket ~ it’s heavy with the reality of survival yet comforting with shared trust, respect and admiration. By the time we arrived at the cemetery hot tears rolled down my dusty cheeks and I was ready to explode, not just from the high altitude, but from pure gratitude!  As I hugged my brothers and took a drink of warm chi cha, I smiled, for this was only the beginning of an exceptional experience I would never forget.

Telling a tale from Kenya-

Crooked trails participant- Christine Frederickson returns to the Maasai village of Merrueshi to reconnect with her friends. 

I awaken early in the morning, to a silence and darkness unfamiliar to my western way of living. The electrical power is off. In Washington State, it’s a strange thing to be jarred awake by this blackness. Yet not more than 48 hours prior to this moment, silence and darkness was the peaceful norm in my cozy little hut nestled in the Kenyan Maasailand community of Merrueshi.  I wonder what time it is in Kenya, where my Maasai  family and friends are.

It would be early evening in Merrueshi and if I were still there, we’d most likely be eating a delicious meal prepared by a wonderful young Kenyan named Edward who traveled from Nairobi to prepare our meals. We might be sitting around with the Maasai Warriors or community members engaged in dialogue about life in Kenya and life in America, family, cattle, and the Kenyan drought season versus the Seattle rainy season. We might be peeking in on the four or five Zebra that meander in nightly along the dry river bed located beside the Maasai Simba Camp after dusk blankets a cloak of safety.

In the next moment, the clock’s digital numbers blink rapidly off and on and I hear the familiar hum of other electronics around the house coming to life again. I finally get up, knowing that my sleep cycle is still in the process of readjustment and that I might as well go with the flow and use this precious nocturnal time wisely.

I restlessly wander around my house of wall to wall carpet, wall to wall bookshelves, two bathrooms with plumbing and “things” that I used to hold of high value for my comfort.  Yet I long for the red Kenyan earth that finds its way into everything, the protective mosquito net over the bed that shields me from the nightly invasions of little winged things, the smell of fire wood burning, the choir-like cacophony of Kenyan birds singing all living things awake. I long for the spectacular sunrise of an early dawn, Kenyan style.

I am not sure what’s mine to do next, in this time zone confusion. What I do know, is that I must write about what I am feeling. I first must create as much of a sense of my Kenya home here right now to access the language of my heart.

I boil water and heat goats’ milk that I managed to find at the local Trader Joe’s. I pull out the newly acquired bag of raw sugar and Ketepa Pride Kenya Tea.  My goal of the moment is to create the most authentic cup of Maasai tea that I can, for my writing time.

I dig through my almost unpacked luggage and retrieve the candle that I used in my hut at the Simba Camp along with the Nescafe coffee can that provided safety and stability for my candle. I place the lit candle and cup of steeping tea close to me and turn off all the lights to write by candlelight.

One of my most favorite quotes from J.R.R. Tolkien is “Not all those who wander are lost”… in this early morning, I feel extremely lost. I am wandering between feelings of overwhelming homesickness for the company of my Maasai rafiki’s (Swahili for friends). I miss hearing their voices in their native tongue of Swahili and Maa and in working hard to speak English. I miss their authentic smiles especially when I am working hard to speak Swahili or Maa.  I really miss the laughter of an inside joke shared between us. It is in this moment that I truly understand at the core of my being that I’ve left behind a significant piece of my heart and soul in Kenya with the Maasai. And although I’ve returned home to wonderful friends and family, I feel very sad and half hearted about being back here.

Perhaps this is just about sitting in my feelings in the moment. Perhaps it’s a call to just pay attention and honor what is.  I smile thinking about my Maasai rafiki’s who don’t have any difficulty in “being in the moment and accepting what is” Hakuna Matata”, right?

Perhaps writing is the solution to relieve the pain of my deep homesickness. Writing about leaving my heart and soul in a far off land on the other side of everything. Kenya, Merrueshi, the Maasai have become more of my home now that I’d returned from a second visit.

In 2005 after studying the Crooked Trails website for nearly two years, I made a decision that it was time to commit to one of the trips. I wanted to satisfy my wanderlust but wasn’t interested in lying on a beach somewhere or being confined to a tour bus traveling at a speed of 60 miles an hour as a culture flashed before me on the other side of a window. I’m an Applied Behavioral Scientist by nature and by academic study, so traveling on one of CT’s community-based trips was just the ticket. I wanted total emergence into another culture to experience how they “tick” in community, how I “tick” being out of my own comfort zone and how we tick in heart connecting relationship. It was the great experiment with a personal goal of being transformed; physically, emotionally and spiritually.

Cruising CT’s website I noticed that Kenya was the newest location for CT to offer. However, my immediate reaction to this destination was fear.
“No way would I go to Africa – its way to far away, its way to unfamiliar, way too many big, scary animals and it’s dangerous”

 And then I happened upon my Astrological Horoscope that shifted my thinking all together.

 “Americans live inside their own private echo chambers endlessly revisiting things they already know they like and avoiding exposure to anything new and different. Your assignment is to escape your private echo chamber.”

And with that ominous warning of possibly never escaping my own private echo chamber, I made a decision to take the assignment. In doing so I was changed forever by a place half way around the world, by people I’d previously thought I was so different from and by being immersed into an experience beyond my wildest dreams.

So this year when a couple of friends talked about going to Kenya with CT, I knew that it was time to return. By now, through correspondence with her teenage son Ratunka, I had cultivated a friendship with Lea David, a young Maasai wife and mother.  Ratunka would practice his English skills in both letters and phone calls (most times at 5am per Pacific Time zone). I began sponsoring both Ratunka and his brother Marona by paying for tuition for school. Over the years, I’ve received beautiful gifts of jewelry hand made by Lea.  I’ve come to know this family and others from the community.  I felt in my gut “the knowing” that it was time to return to the place that I initially had rejected due to my hundred forms of fear Instead, I had fallen in love with Kenya.

I have many, many rich stories to tell about my latest visit back to my home away from home on the other side of the globe. Way too many stories to cover here. My friends tell me that my eyes light up when I talk about for instance:

• Watching Kwenia one of the Maasai Warriors bob his head to the beat of Jimmy Hendrix’s “All along the Watchtower” on my IPOD as we drive across the Rift Valley coming back from Safari at Maasai Mara.
• Sitting by myself in the middle of a bustling outside market in the small town of Emali while Douglas our driver has run off to do errands. I am definitely the minority and the curiosity of many passing by. Yet with all, I initiate a greeting which is more often than not always returned.  “Habari mzuri” (how are you) and “Mzuri Sana” (I am fine). And then in that instance a truck pulls up beside me and Koboli another Warrior greets me with the genuine warmth and familiarity of an old friend. Koboli has been to the United States and he has been to my home in Seattle.
• Participating in Merrueshi’s  primary school event in honor of the last day of the school year, which is attended by the entire community. I do not feel nor am I treated as a tourist. For by this time, I’ve officially been given the honorable name of Mama Ratunka.

However, one of my most cherished memories unfolded on the evening prior to my departure. I was escorted across the Savannah to the home of my friend Lea David for tea, by Samuel one of the Community elders and Lorpapitt one of the Warriors. We were greeted by not only the family, but their friends, one of the teachers, and the community minister. At the end of the visit, the minister asked us all to join hands in a circle and he read a passage from the Bible and then offered a prayer for my safe journey home. The presence of something so powerfully spiritual was palatable. My personal sense of this higher Power is that it’s about Love.

What I am feeling is an enormous amount of love and what I’m learning is that with love is the sadness of missing those who are no longer in front of me physically. How do I retain each and every one of their Spirits, inside my heart? How do I cultivate the love and warmth so astonishingly real and raw to the next day and to the next, and to the next.  How do I take this experience of reaching out to others, being met in friendship and how do I remember to put this experience into action every single minute of every single day? The world needs this I think. The world that I need to exist in requires that I feel this and fold it ten times over into my Being-ness, so that others are served by experience that I’ve had.

It is now almost 5am. I hear the sound of falling rain hitting the skylight. I wish that I had the power to bring this rain to the drought ravaged land around Merrueshi. But even though it is my wish, the Maasai’s belief in their rain God Enkai holds them in these trying times and their attitude is one that there is a value for their experience as well…drought or no drought. They are my teachers. It is what it is and you transform what is into a meaning of value.

I am suddenly exhausted because my body knows that where I have just come from, it is time for bed. I know that my body clock will adjust sooner or later. I can’t say the same about my heart and soul.

Crooked Trails is chosen by Maasai Association

Our Maasai Partners: The Maasai Association headed up by Kakuta Ole Mai Mai have chosen Crooked Trails as being the sole provider of travel programs into Merrueshi. Kakuta and the board of the Maasai Association chose to partner with Crooked Trails over 7 years ago but have now decided that the partnership is so valuable we will be the only ones bringing travelers to their village. We are honored and welcome all people eager to visit Kakuta’s village to sign up for our 2010 programs. Karibu! (welcome)

Crooked Trails continues to assist girls rescued from sexual slavery

For over 6 years CT has supported the work of Anuradha Koirala and her orphanage/center Maiti Nepal which rescues girls from lives of sexual slavery in the brothels of India. Currently there are 450 girls at Maiti Nepal and the center receives no assistance from the Nepalese government which would prefer not to admit that sex trafficking occurs. All support for Maiti Nepal comes from people like you who donate money to keep the girls fed, housed, loved and healthy, as well as offering vocational training. Maiti Nepal has a strong border prevention program and in 2008 alone prevented 1747 women and girls from being trafficked. There are many needs involving capital improvements, so ongoing support is very necessary.

Friends of Maiti Nepal is a US non-profit dedicated to supporting the work of Maiti Nepal and Crooked trails has partnered with them to raise awareness and funds. The current project is to support the girls in their amazing new vocation of bead work. We are selling the bags, bracelets and cell phone bags and will have a Christmas party in early December. The bags are amazingly beautiful, but more importantly they offer a means of livelihood for these young women. Please consider coming to our Christmas party and or hosting a house party to sell the bags yourself. Please contact Chris directly at 206-372-4405 to get set up. We also have an award winning documentary you can show at the event.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

• Attend Chris Mackay’s  house party to purchase one of the lovely beaded works the girls make.
  Date: December 6th. 6-8pm. Enjoy some spiced wine, holiday treats and let’s share stories about travel! Please RSVP to chris@crookedtrails.org
• Donate. Go to www.friendsofmaitinepal.org and give money.  No amount is too small or great. All donations are needed and gratefully accepted. You can pay online or send a check.
• Host a documentary viewing party.  Contact Brigitte Calazis-Collins at Friends of Maiti Nepal or Christine Mackay of Crooked Trails and buy the DVD for $20. Then invite a few of your friends to come over and see the film. Make copies of this letter and hand them out. If you are able, set up your computer to the homepage of Friends of Maiti Nepal so that your friends can easily donate immediately on line. These home style action groups will form a network that will spread the word like wild fire and bring so much support to the girls as well as attention to this terrible issue.
• Visit Nepal and help put up posters in rural areas alerting villagers to the threat of trafficking.  Crooked Trails (www.crookedtrails.org) offers responsible travel programs to Nepal.

For more information contact:

Brigitte Cazalis-Collins Founder of Friends of Maiti Nepal
bcazalis@comcast.net 617-319-1014

Christine Torrison Mackay Founder of Crooked Trails
chris@crookedtrails.org 206-372-4405

We say a sad goodbye to two wonderful board members: Vice President of the Board- Claudia Capitini and Board Fellow-Veena Prasad.

Claudia Capitini joined Crooked Trails a few years back and put her heart and soul into helping develop the board. She brought several new members to Crooked Trails and we are happy to have them. Claudia also helped a great deal in marketing, and always brought positive energy with a strong “can do” attitude to our board meetings: she will be missed but we are hoping she can make one last journey with Crooked Trails to Nepal this Nov.

Veena had joined the Crooked Trails team as a board fellow from the UW MBA program. Veena worked so hard we felt we should have paid her. She brought a great deal to our organization and helped us develop new cash flow management systems as well as new marketing materials. Her practical, intelligent advice is something we will continue to call upon her for in her new role on the advisory board.

Interestingly enough, both women are launching their own new businesses in the food industry. Veena is starting a company that will develop and package all the ingredients you need to make an amazing Indian dish at home. Claudia will be heading to Boulder Colorado and a new career writing sassy cook books which focus on the “bulk isle” for ingredients.

We are going to miss the dedication and energy of these two remarkable women but we hope we may be able to be guinea pigs in their new endeavors. We wish them the best of luck!