Thursday, August 12, 2010

Gannet Peak


Gannet Peak

From what I heard, it starts at the Lander's Bar. You pull in, careful to avoid the row of Harley's up front, and walk in the door. The sights are somewhat unusual. Cowboys dropping whiskey shots into their beers, hippies in the corner listening to whiskey river. Man, even a bunch of animals mounted up! Yes, it's unusual, but inviting and without pretense.

And then you see her. She's a real flower child, as authentic as the cowboys, but young, not one of these old, shriveled Woodstock veterans you've met before. She's lovely, lithe and spins her gypsy skirt to Willie Nelson on the jukebox.

You really don't drink that much (climbing's far more addicting anyway), but you're here, so you might as well have a pitcher. None of the cowboys have asked you to join a cattle drive yet, which is a slight hit to your ego.

Soon enough the girl with the flowers in her hair is sitting beside you.

"You're not from here are you?"
"No I'm not" you say as she helps herself to a glass.
"Well, what're you here for?"

And this is the question, what are you here for?

You're here to get drunk, sleep in your car and drive another hour to a trailhead. to shoulder a pack and skis and ropes, and to hike 20 miles. You're here to cross swollen rivers, yawning glaciers and thick second-growth. You're here to go alone, up Gannet Peak, the highest point in Wyoming. And then you're going to walk for as long as you can without getting altogether too close to other people.

And if you're lucky, you'll have enough foolishly dangerous, but exhilarating experiences to last at least another year.

You've entertained the possibility of going in circles too. No, I think there might be a road ahead, well, obviously I should go back the way I came.

What? Another road, well I only saw the other one two days ago, how strange.

You'd like to romanticize this, say that it'll make you realize some grand and epochal truth. But honestly, that might be asking too much. You're young and wild and want to prove that you're a bad ass.

And the girl? Well, the girl is about to excuse herself and hug her boyfriend, some NOLS instructor. The flirting? Well, some hippies will do anything for free beer. You should know this, because you're probably going to ditch the bill for this pitcher anyway.

You're just another Dharma Bum after all.

Saturday, July 31, 2010

Adventure Athlete Workout: Saturday July 31

Great day in the gym yesterday. I went hardon the warm-up and stretched it to 15 minutes. This is important, a workout schedule is a great thing, you need to have a plan when you go into the gym or else your time will be wasted and you will let yourself off too easily. Workout plans are best written unrealistically, sitting in air conditioning and feeling smug about your fitness. This plan will be too long, it will be too hard, but you need to finish it, usually.

Sometimes, the removal from planning and action is too great. Yesterday this was the case. The first 5 minutes of the warmup were specifically geared towards strengthening the lower back after a hard week of climbing, these stretches went well, and left me warm for the second part of the warmup, the boxer's complexof 50 hops jump rope x 50 strikes on the heavy bag. After the first five minutes were up, I didn't feel adequately warm, so I doubled the boxing complex to ten minutes.

Now I was ready for my three 5x20 lifts, but my anemia left me running on fumes by set three. The finisher to the workout was crucial, and I needed to have the energy to hit it with full intensity, so I lopped off the last two sets of 20, and transitioned into the countdown.

As a result, I left the gym with about two pounds less of sweat, and a little over an hour* of well-planed and efficient training under my belt, along with the sense of accomplishing a hard lift to the best of my ability.

*Yes, an hour, what? You think you need two hours to get some work in? Preposterous, long days are for the mountains, long approach marches and slogs up granite. When I'm in the gym, I work quick and with maximum cardiovascular output. I rarely let my muscles rest, because when I need them on the rock, I need them to work in sustained bursts to establish rhythm. A two hour session requires ample rest time between sets. The only rest that I get on the rock is on a belay ledge, and it comes sparingly, and so I seek to emulate that while in the gym.



Workout:


“An Easy Ab Day”
30-seconds at each station:
GHD Sit-up or Floor Wiper
Tuck Sit (on parallettes)
Forward Leaning Rest on Rings (feet same height as hands)
Sit-up (feet anchored)
Side Plank (right)
Atomic Sit –up
Side Plank (left)

30-seconds between stations during which 5 perfect reps of the following must be done:

Round 1: Pull-ups
Round 2: Triangle push-ups
Round 3: Chin-ups

Three rounds, total duration of workout is 24 minutes

From Gym Jones

Friday, July 30, 2010

Adventure Athlete Workout: Friday July 30 (updated)


Flashback: Tire-flips, March 2010 (I'll get back to these once I've rehabbed my lower back).

Wow, I don't think I've been out of the gym for this long in a while, apparently I haven't posted one of these since this past Monday. I haven't done anything else since then.



Well, not really. On Tuesday I ran hills with a pack until my legs started to give out. On Wednesday I put in a gym bouldering session (with a little bit of slackline work for the core). And yesterday I spent the afternoon at one of the local sport crags. Yesterday was especially killer, the crag is top-rope only (although there are plenty of places to place removable pro, definitely going to keep that in mind for future trad training with a mock lead set to the top-rope)with a some great crack systems (generally comfortable hand-jams, but with some finger cracks and off-width for character building)and a number of tricky chimneys and roofs.

I climbed on route that may have been flirting with 5.10a rating, and then a solid 5.9 with a nasty slab of a crux for the first twenty feet. And then did some practice rappels with my new figure-8 device.

I felt good about the climbing itself. Aside from one tricky crack system I was able to avoid hang-dogging almost entirely (a real temptation on top-roped routes)and I surprised myself in a few of the off-widths.

The crag itself however, left quite a bit to be desired. There are trees everywhere. There are trees at the bottom of the crag that rise over the top-out and drip pine-resin in your hair, there are nasty little survivors clinging to dirt on minuscule ledges that entangle your rope and block the belayer's view of the climber almost entirely. The trees are merely an inconvenience though, when compared to the smattering of roofs towards the top of the climbs that turn each fall into a potentially nasty pendulum (not to mention the rope-drag).

My lower back is pretty much shot after all of this climbing. So I'm about to go for a few days without and actual climbing, and focus on training cardiovascular endurance and flexibility.

Unacceptable, the body must be developed in balance, the legs must be prioritized, treat them mercilessly, volunteer to carry the rope and gear, sprint up steps, power-lift till you puke. Do whatever it takes to turn your legs into tree-trunks, the rest of your body will thank you.

Warmup:

  • 5 minutes dynamic stretching (emphasis on lower-back)
  • 5 minutes boxer's warm-up (50 hops jump-rope, 50 strikes heavy bag: maximum reps for time)

Workout:
  • Barbell Military Press 5x20*
  • Flat Bench-Press 5x20*
  • Bent-Over Lat Raise (on Bosu Ball) 5x20*
*Cut to sets of 3x20, anemia is forcing me to ration energy, and I needed to hit the finisher hard, so I cut back. Cheating? Maybe, but there's a line between dedication and stupidity. Right now I'm content to flirt along the borderlands.

Superset for time, work on speed, minimize rest periods.

Finisher:

Superset reps with countdown from twelve, no rest:
  • Push-press
  • Off-balance push-up

Monday, July 26, 2010

Lennon, McCartney and Robbins, Chouinard


Royal Robbins is handing the sling of climbing gear to Yvon Chouinuard. The weather is marvelous. The air is not to cold, the wind has no bite, and the sun is a friend warming their backs. It’s the kind of glorious day that makes California famous and Yvon Chouinard revels in its comfort. He flies up the wall, more a bird than a man, as the North American Wall of El Capitan falls away to the Yosemite Valley floor 1,500 feet below.

Yvon Chouinard

My love of history has snuck its way into the fire that climbing has lit in my soul. I’ve geeked out over the great books on climbing history and culture: Mark Jenkin’s The Hard Way, John Krakauer’s Into Thin Air and Clint Willis’ The Boys of Everest to name a few. From my reading, I have found two heroes from the enormous and colorful cast of climbing history.

Royal Robbins and Yvon Chouinard were contemporaries during the pioneering days of climbing in Yosemite Valley. Both were exceptionally principled men with innate respect for the world they explored. I deeply respect each man for the integral role they played in bringing “clean climbing” ethics to the mainstream American scene.

In reading about Robbins and Chouinard I have begun to seek out a superior. Which was the better of the two? Who was better on rock? Who pushed the boundaries of the sport further? I find myself making such comparisons regularly, most often between favorite musicians.

Royal Robbins

The most reliably and enjoyably of these self-debates is without question the choice of a favorite Beatle. I’m usually a John Lennon fan myself; I enjoy his avant-garde surrealism and creativity. However, Paul McCartney has been gaining ground on Lennon of late, thanks mostly to a new appreciation for rocky Raccoon and the Abbey Road medley.

The Beatles discussion is so enjoyable in fact, that I’ve even roped a friend into it. Kaitlin Defoor and I used to go to school together. She’s been somewhat of my hippie mentor, and she seems to have the rare ability to mercilessly quash my more moronic flights of fancy.

Kaitlin is a George Harrison fan. And in that she is a collegiate debater, she has done an admirable job in winning me over. However, in the course of my ponderings on Royal Robbins versus Yvon Chouinard, I realized that there is a certain level of excellence at which preference becomes almost irrelevant.

I strongly believe that arguments can almost always be made for the superiority of one thing over another. You could very easily say , show that The Doors were a far better band than Nickelback, or that Dean potter is a better rock climber than yours truly. But I think that when athletes or artists or individual works of art reach a certain level of quality, they exist as incomparable equals.

John and Paul

Yvon Chouinard and Royal Robbins were demigods of Yosemite. Sure, they each at advantages in some areas and disadvantages in others. The same goes for John, Paul, George and Ringo, or The Who vs. The Doors, and even for Citizen Kane vs. The Godfather.

So was George Harrison the best Beatle? Maybe, but I’m too busy enjoying Sgt. Peppers to care. And besides, there are issues in the world far more important than Paul vs. John that I should be concentrating on, like putting up some epic routes like Robbins and Chouinard… their way of course, the right way.

Adventure Athlete Workout: Monday July 26


(Back squat)Kee

Workout:

First:
2x20 Squat
2x 15m Lunge
2x5 Burpee
2x10 Jump Squat
3x10 KB Swing (one set each @ 35#, 44#, 53#)
Then:
Hi-Pull + Power Clean + Jerk @ 50% +/-
One triplet every 30 seconds for five minutes

Then:
7x Clean @ 70% +
90 sec Step-up +
2 min Rest
5x Clean @ 75% +
90 sec Step-up +
2 min Rest
3x Clean @ 80% +
90 sec Step-up +
2 min Rest

Then:
5 minute Intermission (including 3rd-2min Rest period above)
Then:
10x Back Squat @ 50% +
90 sec Burpee/Broad Jump or Rope Pull @ 35# +
2 min Rest
8x Back Squat @ 60% +
90 sec Burpee/Broad Jump or Rope Pull @ 35# +
2 min Rest
6x Back Squat @ 70% +
90 sec Burpee/Broad Jump or Rope Pull @ 35# +
2 min Rest
4x Back Squat @ 75-80% +
90 sec Burpee/Broad Jump or Rope Pull @ 35# +

Then:

Cool down

From Gym Jones

Friday, July 23, 2010

The Hard Way


From:
"Ego Trip: Mountaineering
in Bolivia"
by Mark Jenkins.
Outside Feb 02

"At the 11th hour, the day before departure, my partner bailed. Something hadn't been right from the beginning—the tone of his voice on the phone, the odd nonchalance toward planning our gear and food. I felt it in my gut but ignored the signals. We almost always know what's really going on, we just don't want to admit it....

The plane ticket was in my pocket, pack packed, time carved off the calendar. I could have canceled, but I was itching for another expedition. Besides, I'd told my friends I was off to Bolivia to climb. I boarded the plane early the next morning and ordered two beers to toast my resolve....

In the afternoons I traipsed from one pension to another hunting for a new climbing partner. I was certain I'd find one. Expeditions are always falling apart---illness, injury, or attitude will knock out two or three people and pretty soon the whole trip is in shambles. I figured I'd have my pick of alpinists. But it wasn't so. The few Americans I found were either aimless, dreadlocked pilgrims or eager but inexperienced clients of guided climbs....

Down a cobblestone alley in a shabby hotel I found a three-woman, two-man Slovenian team going to 18,531-foot Condoriri to attempt a new route. They were confident and relaxed. They pulled me into their cramped room to drink wine with them while they loaded piles of Russian ice screws into their worn packs. Their leader was a tall, svelte woman named Ada. She wore a tank top and purple tights. You could see the muscles in her thighs as she moved around. She had flaming auburn hair, prominent cheekbones, and eyes so ravishing I was too self-conscious to look straight at her.

“So, where is partner?” Ada asked me.

“I came to Bolivia alone.”

“Ahhh, I see.” She pushed her hair back and lowered her Cleopatra eyes on me. “You come to solo. Very good.”

The other four members of her team nodded at me in respect and admiration. One climber, a towering guy with stringy hair and a nose that had obviously been broken, gave me the thumbs up.

“Stefan also solos,” said Ada, smirking at her teammate.

I'd never intended to solo anything on this trip. I intended to find a partner, preferably one stronger and more experienced than myself. Although I had soloed mountains in the past, soloing was something that took a stronger head than I had. Soloing required gravitas. No backup, no net, no nada---one mistake and you die. I didn't have the screwed-up childhood or soul-wrenching angst or any other usefully twisted motivation for soloing. I also didn't have the cojones. But now I had this instant reputation.

“And what are you going to climb?” Ada continued.

My erstwhile partner and I had talked about a dozen different mountains but hadn't settled on anything. On my morning runs I'd studied the two peaks just outside La Paz, 21,201-foot Illimani and 20,340-foot Huanya Potosi. The trade routes on both were known to be interesting and not too technical.

“Huayna Potosi,” I declared.

Ada arched her razor eyebrows and a shadow of disappointment crossed her face.

“The east face,” I heard myself say, and they all broke into toothy grins and shook their heads in approval and my tin cup was refilled with red wine.

“To your climb,” said Ada, winking and batting her eyelashes.

I sometimes think back and wonder if she actually knew, somehow, that I'd made it all up on the spot. Nah, of course not. She was just winking at me because she knew she was beautiful and because
beautiful women always like bold mountaineers, particularly beautiful women who are bold mountaineers.

That night I went to a good restaurant, La Carreta, ordered myself a big Argentinean steak, and drank one cold beer after another until I was convinced that climbing the east face of Huayna Potosi was indeed exactly what I'd come to do. Although, having no guidebook and no topo, I had no idea if such a route even existed."

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Edge of Seventeen

I recently came up with the idea for a dual, cool-person reading club. Since the club was my idea, I gave the first suggestion. It was The Ghost Road by Hemmingway of our age, Mark Jenkins. She liked it, which made me happy, and her thoughts are available to read here.

For my first assignment, I was told to peruse a website of Stevie Nicks quotes, and just kind of respond. I admit that what follows is somewhat melodramatic, but I’m talking about rock stars, so it’s hard not to do.

I think that there is a connection that comes from creating something with another person. It’s the chemistry between mothers and fathers, and slightly differently between band mates. Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham had love for each other, and they shared the bond of co-creation. That must have been truly extraordinary.

Then the way it all ended… Lindsey Buckingham seems to be incapable of sustaining his relationship with Stevie beyond the passion they had during the music and fame and creativity. Stevie says that at one point the relationship devolved to the point that she would “walk into a room and he'd become the most sarcastic, unpleasant man on the face of the earth.”

I have a picture in my mind. It’s of Lindsey Buckingham sitting in a basement. He’s holding court over a group of hippies. There’s smoke in the air, and three joints are being passed around the group. Beer, whiskey, maybe there are some girls are in the corner doing lines. It’s Lindsey at home, relaxed, everyone in the room is less rich, less famous, less smart and less creative than him. He’s grinning, and offhandedly strumming an acoustic guitar.

Then Stevie walks in. The girls wipe their noses, a few of the guys start rolling more joints, they act distracted, everyone is looking away. Lindsey puts down the guitar. Tension fills the air. Then Lindsey says something terrible.

He doesn’t mean it. Not really. He is lashing out nonsensically. He’s suspicious and paranoid and conflicted. I think he wants control, control of his environment and the people within it. He loves Stevie, but she isn’t his, not really. She is her own person. In her love she has given herself to Lindsey, but not completely, she doesn’t let herself.

She does this not because she is some violent feminist, but because she is scared. She does not know what she is scared of, but she thinks she knows how to fight her fear. She fights it with personal strength, independence, creativity and, when these fail, the drugs.

They are both wealthy and famous, and they love each other, they really do. But each is governed by some indelible flaw that serves like wall between them. And every night Lindsey worries about Stevie’s faithfulness, or tears into her esteem with mean words and passive aggressiveness, the bricks build and build on this wall, until one day the two wake up and realize that the wall is so tall that it blocks out the other completely.

And then the love dies. But it's a love that will leave countless people will share in for years to come.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Steph Davis is one bad ass chick.

Steph Davis pushing boundaries as a free-soloist and as a sport climber. Awesome in every way.






Saturday, June 12, 2010

Now to the climbing part.


About two months ago I took up climbing. I bought a pair of rock shoes and a chalk bag, then started to try and figure out what the whole sport is about. I haven't written anything in a while, because this new hobby has dominated most of my time. Workouts in the weight-room, the road and the gym crags, and learning stuff like how to tie knots, and how not to strangle myself with an expensive, stretchy, nylon rope and such good skills. More recently I bought a nice harness and some good hardware. And in a month I'm going to Colorado for two days of multi-pitch trad climbing.



I've had quite a few good, and some really great, adventures at work and in my everyday life over the past months. But my thoughts are elsewhere, on epic rock and ice. I've read Eiger Dreams and Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer and watched video after videos of ice axe work and 5.12 leading on El Cap.



Here's more cool stuff about The Eiger.



Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Chaps


Rattlers Brand Original Snake Chaps made with Cordura nylon.

Use them for rabbit hunting, trekking or weed-eating. They're my secret favorite piece of gear.

Friday, April 16, 2010

A War on His Fretboard


Jimi Hendrix's Star Spangled Banner, Woodstock Music Festival 1969.

From Mike Daley:

"
Hendrix adorns the simple anthemic melody with scoops and articulations like a lone gospel singer. This vocal interpretation continues through the first two stanzas, with some trumpet-like trills appearing later on. With feedback beginning to encroach on the held notes, Hendrix engages the wah pedal to up the treble ante. He follows the B section line “and the rockets’ red glare...” with the wail of a falling bomb and its subsequent explosion, mashing his Stratocaster’s vibrato bar to its lowest position. Some rolling confusion follows, screaming voices, machine gun ratatats, unearthly strangled cries, a mother’s futile wails. Then the line “the bombs bursting in air”, followed by a low-toned siren, some unplaceable sounds of unreality, another bomb assault, twisted metal and bodies, a trickle of blood. “Our flag was still there” leaps up to a keening, pure-toned quotation of “Taps”. The final stanza beginning with “Oh say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave” is given a straight treatment but is filtered through ululating pickup toggle switch effects, with the word “wave” held through successions of fed-back harmonic overtones. With a strangled stop, Hendrix resumes with “o’er the land of the free”, with the final note of the line again left for dead to have its fundamental pitch leached out by the feedback decay, and a final bomb’s fall to earth. After a short serious of portentous, incongruous chords, Hendrix segues into a perfunctory “Purple Haze”."

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Cool Stuff


The old days.

+Wool socks and my old La Sportiva's.

Not for running anymore, but after putting my Mountain Masochists on the mound as my running shoes the old La Sportiva's have the distinction of being my work shoes. Lightweight, supportive, --and with some mid-weight wool socks--cool and dry.

Such a man.
+Sarah Palin's Alaska.

It's going to be epic.

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Greenvile


Greenville, South Carolina starts suddenly, there's a dead land around it full of strip malls, Mexican restaurants and a Publix. There is a gate somewhere in the deadland, and it leads to Furman University's gorgeous campus full of fountains and trees.

But the dead land is not the city proper. No, the city proper starts suddenly. One instant, you're in the dead lands of strip malls and fast food restaurants, the next, you're in one of the most well designed cities in the country.

Greenville has a convention center, some hotels, but mostly, there are shops. There's any kind of shopping imaginable, and you can walk to it over cobblestones and through wonderfully laid-out crosswalks. There's a coffee shop that makes single-serving soft-serve with whatever toppings you could imagine mixed in. There is a street, long and straight with bars on each side catering to almost any social scene you could possibly identify with.

But that's not why you go to Greenville, you go to Greenville for Fall's Park.


It's not as big as Central Park, or as famous. But it doesn't need to be. Greenville is a short drive away from most any outdoor adventure you could imagine. The park needs not be the city's only outdoor escape, they have plenty. The park just needs to be.


And that's what it does. It exists in simplicity and beauty, a large creek runs through the park, broken up by a steep drop and waterfall over which spans a gorgeous suspension bridge. There are few night lights in the park. Possibly not the greatest decision from a Jack The Ripper perspective. But man, at night, walking through the barely lit paths of Falls Park, it's easy to forget that you're in a city at all.

I started thinking about Falls Park and Greenville because of one piece of news. The Google, Fiber for Communities project is going to select one or more cities to receive broadband, Google style. Where speed means downloading a full movie off of iTunes in 70 seconds, and lag-free video chat for all.

To get the service, cities are trying some crazy things. Topeka, Kansas renamed itself Google, NPR has talked a lot about that. But for me, the only real worthy contestant is teh city that starts suddenly, Greenville, South Carolina.

Two weeks ago, a little over 2,000 Greenville residents brought glow-sticks to Falls Park and spelled out Google. The full word could really only be seen from the air.

But that's what planes were made for.

If the people of a city love their home so much that they are willing to spend the kind of money that it takes to create something as beautiful as Falls Park on its improvement, then that place must be doing something special.

So Google, give Greenville your internet. They deserve it.


Thursday, March 25, 2010

Language is the Source of All Misunderstandings

In Haiti, an orphan can have two living parents. The system is different than America, the word “orphan” is a broad categorization that covers children with both dead parents and parents who decide to put their children into the system. The latter is almost like foster care here in America, except not nearly as comfortable.

A week or so after the earthquake, some Americans, Baptists mostly, loaded orphans onto a bus. They were taking them to the Dominican Republic, to an orphanage. As they began to drive away, a young woman threw a bundle through one of the bus windows and ran off, in the bundle was a baby.

They stopped the bus, chased the woman down, and caught her. We’re sorry; we can’t take this baby we don’t have the paperwork to get her across the border.

Eventually the young mother took her child and left, the bus started again, they reached the Dominican Border, were searched, found clean and let through.

This isn’t the story of Laura Silsby, I don’t have anything to say about Laura Silsby, because I don’t know anything other than what you’ve read in the New York Times. But I did know this story, and you’ve probably not read anything about it.

The nicest orphanage in Haiti abuts the Port Au Prince Airport. It doubles as one of the city’s largest Protestant Churches and is reminiscent of 1900’s Hacienda in both layout and architecture.

The orphanage/church consists of five two-story buildings laid out in an open rectangle around a dusty courtyard about seventy five by fifteen yards. Around the perimeter is an eight-foot tall cinder-block wall topped with civilian razor wire. Brinks security is now Broadview Security, except in Haiti, where it’s still rock and metal. 200 miles North in Florida, men protect their homes like George Jetson, and in Port Au Prince they do it like Fred Flintstone.

Their way works pretty well.

There is no glass. Glass is expensive and stops the breeze, windows are big and opened and look out on wide hallways like balconies. The roof is corrugated metal and held above the tops of the building by steel girders to help with the air flow.

The actual orphanage building caps the closed end of the rectangle. It’s a poured-cement building, gray and square. There’s a balcony on the second floor where the girls live. They can see the airplanes taking off from there. They think that this will fascinate us newcomers. It does, I take dozens of pictures there. But there’s nothing to stop the sounds of the plane’s engines, which can go on well past one in the morning. From what I was able to gather, the kids really have gotten used to the noise, they sleep fine (the heat maybe?), but maybe they shouldn’t have to put up with it, bad for their health or something. Honestly, I couldn’t say. They are where they are.

The orphanage and church was started by a man named Pastor Edmond. Edmond’s story is difficult to piece together, he’s become somewhat of a folk hero among the short-term missionaries, so details and numbers are a bit smudged there. And, Edmond didn’t speak the best English, so it’s fuzzy. The best I can piece together.

In the early 1970’s, a young man named Edmond was called into the ministry. He didn’t go. Instead, he went into business, I think. But, he did get an education, the faded photographs on his office wall held evidence of a graduation with robes and caps. God called him again, a few, I think three, years later.

At this point, he either followed, or waited for a third call depending on the story. Either way, by the mid 1970’s he had started the first Church and orphanage, I think that it’s the one we’re sleeping in. But this could be the second or third, that part of the story was unclear.

So began Pastor Edmond’s ministry. It’s grown a bit. I think that he’s started twenty two, and all of them, would seem to be orphanages as well. Some versions of the story had orphanages at only a few of the churches, but that take was in the minority.

This was the biggest Church and orphanage. There were 85 kids here when we visited, about the same level as before the earthquake. Immediately after, the numbers dropped dramatically as parents came and took their kids. Most of the original kids tricked back in a couple of weeks, and there were a few new orphans brought in as a result of the quake. But the number’s stable and huge really. None of the other orphanages have this many kids (and, well, adults too, some 25 year old former orphans still live in the orphanage and work as cooks).

Edmond has a son named Wesley. Wesley is quiet, about five foot eight and 200 pounds. When he was a teenager, Edmond sent him to Miami to live with family and attend school. Wesley stayed in America and went to college and got a job. About a year ago, Wesley left his family in Miami and moved to Port Au Prince to take over management of the orphanages. His English is impeccable, so is his Creole. Wesley is the ideal guide and translator. One day I asked if we could try some sugar cane, that afternoon our bus pulled over and Wesley bought us a bundle of canes. He was a truly good man.

Every night, in a small, open hallway, with concrete walls spattered with chipping yellow paint, the orphans worship. The floor is linoleum and old, it’s turned the same color yellow as the paint on the walls. A generator floods the air with noise and smell. But they fill it too.

They fill it with the Holy Spirit and they fill it with their voices. They fill it with worship sung aloud and with passion in Creole. The hallway’s acoustics are negative, laughable. But the sound is rich and soft, like smoke over ice. It is beautiful and weak and strong and rich and poor and full of truth.

The first night, they asked us why we are here. They don’t understand. Randall, a middle-aged pastor with the spirit of a child, tells a story through translators. It’s something about breaking a window at his Church as a child. The story didn’t carry across the hallway nearly as well as the singing. I only got bits and pieces of the tale through the noise of the generator. Someone tells me later that he’s talking about Christ’s grace, illustrating it with his own mischief.

Randall walked down the hall a ways, and finished his talk. This wasn’t the best thing that could have happened. Randall, as I would come to find throughout the week, was a gifted speaker, glorious, simple and pure… for about the first 3/4 of his speaking. Then, he’d go on too long, and say something stupid. His words were harmless, no one ever took offense to them, and he meant nothing negative by them. But, he would step in it from time to time.

This night, I witness the Randall phenomenon for the first time. He starts asking questions of the Americans in our group, and then repeats them to the translator who asks the orphans the same questions in turn.

“How many of you have a car? How many of you have a college education? How many of your have your own home? How many of you have a job?” Every Americans raised their hands to every question, raised them slowly and awkwardly. This was bad, really bad. Dear Randall: I think we all know that there are a few… differences among the gathered.

His point slowly became clear; he was talking about how Jesus loves us all the same no matter what we have, no matter who we are.

A good message, a true message. But within its truth is the sorest issue for the Christian missionary in Haiti. We have everything, they have nothing. Everyone in our group felt this, we were pained by it, and we were doing what we could to help the children sitting in front of us, never raising their hands to say “yes, I have this thing”. The children knew, they understood that we had everything, and that they had nothing.

For both groups, the issue was a wound. Randall was throwing salt in it. We could have used the reminder, it was good for us. We must never forget the disparity in our wealth else we become callous and self-centered. But they didn’t need the reminder. They knew well enough.

But Randall meant well, we all meant well. I went to bed hot, mosquito-bitten and blessed by Pastor Edmond’s children.

There were many more blessings to come.


End Part 2.