A plane travels over 550 miles per hour, moving you from one country to another with little time for your mind to adjust. Over-tired, jet lagged and exhausted from a mentally draining summer I felt it hard to readjust to this new reality. Coming from a beautiful beach where our free lifestyle sits well in my heart to landing in a part of the world where freedom does not come so freely.
Summer Re-cap
This was a really emotionally challenging summer. Because for the first time in my life I had to truley fight for something I love. I have grown to love every part of setnetting since I started over 12 years ago and I never dreamed that after all of our hard work that we would have a summer like this. For the first time in history our fishery was shut down. We spent the summer being strung along and hoping for a chance to fish.
In the end we did not fish. Instead we united with the other setnetting families and realized that we all shared this passion and pride for what we do. There are very few people left in America who can say they work with their hands, they work for themselves, with their families and they are proud and in love with what they do. We are part of that group and now what we had thought would always be, has been taken away. Through a turn of events I luckily connected to two other fisherwomen and we are still working together to fight what needs to be done to hopefully find a solution for our fishery.
This is a video I had made to explain our situation.
But beyond the hardships there was plenty of fun.
Raph, Aaron and I had no troubles keeping ourselves busy with many projects. Despite the lack of fishing I couldn't think of a better place to be and with better people to be there with. One of our projects was making a wood fired pizza oven. We were able to find most of the materials locally on our beach; including clay, rocks, sand and hay.
Here is the process
Cutting Hay for the cob mixture
Building the base from rocks we collected on the beach
Mixing concrete to make the slab for cooking the pizza
Mixing the clay we gathered from the bluff
Building the form from tree saplings
The base, slab and form, ready to add cob
Mixing the hay into the slip
Adding the cob to the form
Ready to fire
Then we had a big pizza party with all our neighbors.
Art Swap
This year was the 9th annual art swap and despite my fears that it would be a flop with the fishing situation being so dismissal, we had another record turn out. With 38 participants, more spectators, live music and a new addition of the burning man.
A collaborative poster of fellow fishermen
Reading the collected thoughts of neighboring crew members- we shared all of our positive thoughts from the season
Humpy Point Burning man- genius addition (thanks James and Sarah) to our art swap, a group effort to build. Including a heart that was stuffed with our negative baggage from the season- that we burnt away
An amazing end to an unforgettable evening. An evening filled with friends and neighbors, art and live music, hope and fear, food and spirits, burning man and skinny dipping. Looking forward to the 10th annual!
Then......to the east
With just a few days left of summer break we had time to stop over and visit my family. And once again it was so nice to see everyone and I was reminded how blessed I am to have such kick ass cousins.
Beer Works
Got to see mom and dad...
Then even further east....
Once back home we go the news that our school opening would be postponed. It was the end of Ramadan (Islams holiest month) and they wait till they can see the moon to actually call the end of Ramadan (called Eid) and long story short they were going to be calling it later than expected which meant an extra week off for us.
We decided to go to Jordan.
I have no idea why. Expect that it is only 3 hours away and is suppose to have some cool sights. Including some place where Indian Jones was filmed.
For me Jordan is a place I wouldn't go back. But than again for me a little bit of Ruins goes A LONG way, I have seen enough castles to last me a life time.
Beyond the tourists sights the two highlights included.....
Going to a concert of a big Jordanian Pop star. A guy in the audience told me the guy was the Jordanian Bon Jovi. I didn't have the heart to tell him that Bon Jovi was neither the leading pop singer in the US or that he didn't sing about current political issues like the Palestanians plight. The music was great, the people were beautiful and the whole scene was so magical that I wish I could show the US that this is the normal side of the Arab world. Children dancing on tables, friends arm and arm and people proud of their country.
Second highlight meeting a guy in a small village during Eid (their big holiday-like our Christmas) and him inviting us in for tea and hooka. He taught us much about his country and culture. His wife, fully covered, served us homemade date cookies and waited in the other room if we needed anything. When I asked to use the toilet she gave me the signal for "one minute." She came back stinking of bleach - I went in the bathroom and she had scrubbed the whole thing top to bottom, the floor was soaking wet. Too funny. Over all it was an interesting experience for all of us and a true look at what different worlds we live in.
The Dead Sea- the lowest place on earth at 400 meters below sea level. We were told that we would float, and I have been to salty oceans so I thought it would be the same. But it really was CRAZY. It was extremely buoyant... you couldn't even keep your legs beneath you. It was crazy hot, both the water and the air. The salt content unfathomable.
Petra- A historical and archeological sight from 312 BC- Beautiful but way too touristy. Probably similar to going to the pyramids.
Tunnel escape from the castle- a place that you are free to roam and do whatever you want. Like shit in a whole, which we opted not to do but funny enough many people had. This passage was a dark tunnel that we navigated 400 feet with one head lamp.
What not to wear in 100 degree weather.
Oddly enough, the most popular toy for the children to buy on Eid (a holiday meant for resolving past conflicts among friends and family) are toy guns.
So now we are back. Back to reality and to work. I have to say it is a hard adjustment leaving my favorite place in the world (our Alaskan beach) and coming here. My mind is 100% occupied with fighting for our fishery. I spend most of my time reading, emailing and talking to other fisherman and my heart has not yet transferred to the classroom. I am stressed but very hopeful for our fishery, because we are all working hard and making headway.
But last night our closest friends here came to visit and being with them just makes you realize how trivial our problems really are. These friends are Syrian and all of their family members are in the heart of the war zone in Syria. They live in constant fear for the future of their country and the safety of their family - and they are fighting to even be allowed to have their family visit. I can't even relate to the hardship they are living. They showed me videos of the situation and I was stunned with the gruesome reality of the war being waged there. It was a wake up call for me to be with them and share this reality with them. It puts things into perspective.
Well I hope this finds everyone wrapping a beautiful summer. Take care and be in touch.
