US, Part 2.5.1: Mount Rushmore

When we left Cheyenne, we were in for one of the longest travel days on tour. When I found out that South Dakota was going to be one of the states on our tour, I instantly thought how awesome it would be to see Mount Rushmore, since it is probably the most easily recognizable American symbol, next to the Statue of Liberty, and I could not imagine that Up with People would pass up the opportunity to take us there. And I wasn't disappointed. Earlier in Cheyenne, it was announced that we would be going on the buses early in the morning and driving to see Mount Rushmore, and then spending the night at a camp in the middle of the Black Hills.

On the morning of departure, everybody on the bus that was not from this region of the United States was really excited about what they were going to be seeing, and speculating how big it was going to be. From the pictures, I thought that the monument itself could be huge, but after seeing the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City, it became clear to me that photographs could be deceiving. So, I had no clue what to expect.

We were all on the bus, doing typical Up with People bus activities, (i.e. sleeping, listening to our iPods, giving our bus driver Marv a hard time by asking him if he knew where we were going, etc.) when all of a sudden I hear a big, "Oh, my god!!" coming from the back of the bus. I look out the window and see a bigger-than-life carving of George Washington's head, and I knew that we had arrived. Within minutes of that first sighting, Mount Rushmore was laid out before us, with all its splendor and majesty.

All of us raced off the bus to see how close we could get to the monument. But by the time I had gotten there, I found out that I was late for our cast picture, no doubt destined for Up with People brochures for years to come. After taking the picture, it was time to take a walking tour of the site, where we learned some fascinating stuff. We learned all about the Danish artist that had designed the sculptures, and we also learned how Mt. Rushmore got its name. We learned that throughout the construction of the monument that there were no work-related deaths, which is a rare thing when working on a project of that magnitude. The tour guide even showed us the staircase that Harney Keitell and Nicholas Cage fight over in National Treasure: Book of Secrets. I've decided that I am going to get a bunch of friends over to watch movies that feature locations that I have been on my tour. That might be fun.

Once the last pictures were taken, and the last Mount Rushmore hoodie was sold, it was time for Cast B to pile onto the buses and head to our camping spot that would be the site of one of three host family-free overnights of the tour. I do have to say that just like the Mormon Temple, Mount Rushmore seemed a lot smaller than I imagined it to be. When I went to the Eiffel Tower years ago, it was actually larger than I thought it would be. That's why I think it's interesting that with our reputation for big things, all of the American monuments or historical sites we visited were smaller than I expected.

Anyway, after a bus ride of a couple hours, we finally arrived at our destination. Outlaw Ranch is a summer camp nestled in the Black Hills of South Dakota, and I think it is pretty safe for me to say that this is the first time the staff of the camp had ever seen the likes of us. We are a rowdy bunch. After we all piled into the main lodge of the cabin, we did a little activity called "Thumper," which is a memory/concentration game. Everyone stands in a circle, and comes up with a funny noise with an accompanying gesture. The game is played by doing your gesture/noise combination, and then choosing the next person to go by doing their noise/gesture combo. That person has to do their combination, and then choose the next player and so on until someone makes a mistake. The last person standing, wins the game. It's a delightful game that could easily be played at your next cocktail party.

But... things could turn ugly if you are a member of Up with People's Cast B '08 and there is a Thumper tournament staged. Everyone was split up into their hometeams and a game of Thumper was played. All of the hometeam winners would then battle to see who would be the ultimate champion. It all started out innocently when we all were playing our respective hometeam match-ups, but once we got into the final round, things got extremely intense. People were chanting their representative's name: "VERONIKA! VERONIKA! VERONIKA!" It was an interesting sound that was produced when 107 people are chanting 7 different names all at once. As with all competitive events, the tournament was marred with teams accusing other teams of cheating, and then we'd inevitably have to go to the instant replay for an official ruling. When all was said and done, it was Molly Robertson, our logistics coordinator that took home the grand prize of... the satisfaction of winning the tournament. (Although, representing Hometeam 3, and all of the other hometeams whose representative didn't win, Molly is the person that actually introduced the game to the group, so I think all the rest of us were at an extreme, nay, unfair disadvantage.) Anyway... (Love ya, Molls)

After the craziness that was the Thumper tournament, and after supper, we had an introduction for what was going to happen for the week that we were going to be in Aberdeen. The theme for Aberdeen was immigration, so they introduced a week-long activity called Up with People Land, but that's something for the Aberdeen post, so I'll save it for then. Stay tuned for that! :) Hey, I've got to keep my readership hooked somehow...

After learning about UwP Land, we basically could do whatever we wanted for the rest of the night, which is certainly a rarity while traveling with Up with People. We could veg out in our cabins, we could go into the lodge and play Truth or Dare (from which I heard some very interesting stories that are not Blogger-appropriate,) or we could sit by the bonfire and roast marshmallows, eat S'mores, and talk about life, home, or the UwP Land game that we were all suddenly thrust into. I thought it would be really relaxing and mind-clearing to just sit by the fire and listen to the conversations around me. Then our music coordinator, the inimitable Kady Brown, brought out her guitar, and Ellen Enebo, our education coordinator, printed off some song lyrics, and we spent quite awhile contemplating the fire, and singing old Beatles and Joe Cocker tunes. It was quite lovely. Then after that kind of died down, another batch of people came in and started telling ghost stories. That was one of the best nights I probably spent during the whole tour.

The next morning, we all piled our stuff into the buses, and Marv and The Other Guy That Particular Week drove us due Northeast, toward Aberdeen, South Dakota, where the world of make-believe reigned supreme.

US, Part 2.5: Cheyenne, WY

After Salt Lake City, it was off to Cheyenne, WY, the land of Cowboys and rodeos. When driving through the Wyoming countryside, you instantly realize that there is a whole lot of countryside and not much else. Up until that point, I had never seen so much unspoiled land. For miles and miles, there is nothing but hills, hills, and more hills, and right in the middle of this expanse of nothingness lies Cheyenne, a veritable metropolitan oasis. Our first day we were there, we got a taste of the mighty Wyoming winds. Everyone was making a mad dash inside so that they wouldn't get blown over.

As soon as we entered, we found out that the theme for this week was going to be gender roles, and that for the education workshop, we had to dress as the opposite sex. Not only that, but our gender roles committee (which, incidentally, was composed of five women) gave each one of us an egg and told us that we had to take care of it the entire week. It was like being in Biology class all over again. I totally thought I outgrew that.

After we got the lowdown on the week, it was time to go home to our respective families. This week I was hosted with Laura Lynn from Nebraska, and Neele from Germany, and our host family only consisted of one member. Bob Farr is many things: an entrepreneur, a veterinarian, a collector, a father, a humanitarian, and a really, REALLY good cook. When we arrived, we saw this charming 100-year-old country house laid out before us. The house made such an impression on Neele that she declared it to be "her dream house," and proceeded to take thousands of pictures.

But one of the best things about being placed with Bob was that he is Cheyenne's unofficial Up with People historian. Every time a cast came through town, he would host somebody, and save every article and piece of memorabilia from every show ever performed in Cheyenne. It was great to see all of that history laid out before me, and thumb through some of the old cast photos of the people who had soldiered forth before us. Even though I love answering UwP-related questions, it was so nice to be able to talk to someone who had a really good knowledge base of the program, and its philosophy.

The Regional Learning section for this city centered around the rodeo culture that pervades the Southern and Midwestern United States. The whole cast packed in to the rodeo stadium of the Laramie County Community College and were instantly transported into a world of lassos, goat roping, and bucking broncos. First, we had an introduction and explanation of each of the events that are in the modern rodeo. Then it was our turn to try everything. The first station I went to was the steer roping. It was a good thing that they used plastic dummies, because I was horrible. Those people make it look so easy! I tried about 7 times, and then gave up. Cheryssa, on the other hand, got her technique down in two tries. Nobody would have even guessed that one of her natural talents included steer roping.

One of the other stations let us see what it was like to tie a goat. But with this station, they used a real live goat that the cast later named "Pedro." The basic technique of goat roping is to get up behind the goat, throw it to the ground, grab thee of the four legs, and tie them together. After the first demonstration of this, our goat-roping expert told us that this is in no way stressful or taxing to the goat. I looked around to the people in my group, and I think we all had the same thought at the same time: "I wonder if anyone asked Pedro his opinion." The expert told us that after he was done with us, he'd be off playing with his friends again, and eating his favorite diet of oats and grass. I wonder if there is any money in Goat Psychology... I bet I'd make a killing! By the end of all the demonstrations, Pedro looked physically exhausted and despondent, and I really felt bad for the poor guy...

After considering a PETA membership, it was off to talk to some of the cowboys that ride the bulls. One of the biggest things that I learned while talking to the cowboys was that when in the ring, the bull and the rider are a team. The bull earns points, and the rider earns points, and they combine those two scores to get the total score... I always thought that you were in direct competition with the bull. Further conversation with the cowboys revealed what a brutal sport bull riding is. One of the riders we talked to told us about getting knocked out in the ring and spending the rest of that day and the next day in a coma. They told us that it wasn't uncommon to lose a thumb if you don't hold on to the saddle properly. What was really great about this part of the day was that a lot of the cast got a chance to ride a mechanical bull. I was very impressed to see that most of my castmates had succeeded in staying on the "bull." After the whole session had turned into the cowpeople roping the members of Cast B, it was time to call it a day.

What made this week special was that this was the week that my mother and sister came to visit me and hang out with me a little bit. I was really excited to introduce Mom and Kate to my friends in the cast. Here is the conversation that kept repeating itself:

Me: Hey, [insert Cast B friend's name here]! This is my mother and my sister.
Cast B friend: Oh... nice to meet you.
Me: No... my REAL mother, and my REAL sister...
Cast B friend: OOHHH!!! NICE TO MEET YOU!

It was extremely good to see my family during the course of the trip, and have them see the show that had really started looking like a professional show. But it was slightly weird for me with them meeting the friends that I considered family for the past 4.5 months. Two worlds and two chapters of my life were colliding. It's kind of like watching an episode of Frasier where a Cheers character guest stars. It's really fun and interesting, but it hurts the brain a little bit.

After the day, we went out to Red Lobster, because, believe it or not, there are no Red Lobster franchises within the state of Maine. Go figure. It was so cool catching up with the news back at home. It's amazing how much I hadn't thought about home and was so much out of the loop. I was on a personal odyssey, and meanwhile the lives of my family and friends were continuing without me there. That kind of put everything in perspective. I also enjoyed showing them how much I had changed in a very short period of time.

During host family day, I spent a lot of the day going back and forth from spending time with my host dad to spending time with my own family. The day started with a tour of my host dad's animal clinic. He showed us some hawks that he had rescued and explained a little bit about them. Then he took us on a tour of the whole clinic, the layout of which he designed himself to be as efficient as possible. He was so successful with his design in fact that his clinic was featured in a prominent magazine, and other clinics across the country patterned their layout after his. What really came out of the clinic tour was his love and respect for all animal kind, and how he has made it his life's work to protect them and make sure they're happy and healthy.

It so happens that Laura Lynn's parents were in town that week to visit her, so we all thought it would be wonderful if her family, my family and our host family all had dinner together. As always, the meal that Bob cooked would have gained five stars in any Zagat's guide. And it was so good to be sitting around the table and enjoying each other's company.

On the last night, Bob helped me upstairs to give me a tour of his massive collection of Hopalong Cassidy products... It turns out that it was Hopaling Cassidy that was the first public figure to make money off of putting his face on every kind of product imaginable. One of the most interesting pieces in Bob's collection was an actual Wheaties box with Hopalong's picture on it. "Hopalong was the first person to have his likeness on a Wheaties box," he told me as he passed it to me, "and this is the only box of its kind known to exist in the world." As soon as he told me that, I took a glance at it, and then quickly passed it back to him, not wanting anything to happen to it.

Then he passed me a coffee cup with a foil seal on it, and a dark substance inside. "In this cup," he said, "there is peanut butter from the 1950s." Hopalong Cassidy had his face on peanut butter in a coffee cup with the concept that when you finish the peanut butter inside the cup, you don't have to throw away the cup; you can reuse it. It turns out that Cassidy sold the rights to the peanut butter, which, upon changing hands, went from Hopalong Cassidy peanut butter to Jif, the brand that choosy mom's choose. After the tour of his house, and more information about Hopalong Cassidy than I had ever dreamed of learning, I started packing for the 12th time.

In the morning while having breakfast, Bob put on his copy of the first album Up with People ever produced. Hearing that music really made me realize how far this organization had gone. It started out with people going into high schools with nothing more than acoustic guitars, and exploded into a global phenomenon. And I was a part of its history. After piling all our stuff into the van, Neele and I went to the bus drop off place, said, "See you later," and, "Keep in touch," to Bob, and I hugged my mother and sister for one more time, and we rode off through endless hills on our way to South Dakota, for the next adventure to start.

US, Part 2.4: Salt Lake City, UT

Two things come to mind when I hear the words, "Salt Lake City:" The Winter Olympics, and, of course, the Mormon Church, and then I immediately go to a picture of Donny and Marie Osmond doing a duet of, "I'm a Little Bit Country..." But that's another post altogether. To tell you the truth, I didn't really know what to expect from Salt Lake. The only thing I knew was that we were going to get a huge education on the Mormon religion, which turned up in me both excitement and hesitation: I was excited because I was about to be immersed in a thing that was almost completely foreign to me, and I was hesitant because it was something I had a hard time relating to. I am not a religious person, and have very strong beliefs and opinions about organized religion, and so I knew this week was going to be pivotal in my Up with People journey.

Our Regional Learning day brought a tour of the Mormon Temple, the very one that they put on all of their information cards that make it look huge. I was shocked to see that the temple wasn't that large at all. Since we couldn't go inside the temple, we instead took a tour of the Visitors' Center and the Tabernacle. And the best thing about the tour was that it was given in everyone's native language. I have been hearing my native language for a good part of my life, so I decided to take the French tour instead.

We learned all about the dynamics of the church, for instance, where and when it was founded, and it's structure. It's interesting because it has a structure similar to Catholicism. There's a head guy, which they call, "the Prophet," similar to the Pope, and several Apostles, which I equated in my mind to the Cardinals. Then, we learned about the Temple itself. It took the early Mormons 40 years to construct it, and, like the city of Mecca to the Muslims, only Mormons can enter inside. It serves as a ceremonial place for events such as weddings, funerals, etc. After we got the low-down on the Temple, we went into the Tabernacle and got a presentation from a Sister about the acoustic qualities. First, she ripped a piece of paper, then she dropped some nails on the lectern. The sound was amazing. If we had to perform a show there, our sound guy, Nathan, would have been able to take a well-deserved vacation.

For our Community Impact project, we volunteered at the Utah Food Bank, which takes donations of food from all over Utah and distributes it to people in need, mostly homeless shelters. For the first part of the day, we had these huge boxes full of food that we had to empty and sort into 25 different food categories. But the fun part came in the afternoon where we were walked into a room with three huge crates full of apples, and we had to put 6 apples into bags, and then put ten of those bags into boxes.

I learned at the very beginning of the semester that us Uppies don't just do community service. We make a game out of it. At the beginning, people were casually putting apples in bags, and bags in boxes. But by the end we were split up into two groups, and we were racing to see which team could empty their crate first. Apples were flying left and right. The other non-Uppie volunteers watched in shock and awe the spectacle before them. When the guy from the food bank entered and said that our time was up, everybody in the room groaned, and the guy gave a look like he had never had volunteers groan when they had to stop working. I think the people at the Utah Food Bank are going to remember us for a long time to come.

This was one of my favorite weeks on the tour because the Education Department set up what they call, "Cast University," where various members of the cast sign up for an hour slot and teach a skill to some of their cast mates. People kept encouraging me to sign up to teach a French workshop, and since I am such a pansy in the face of peer pressure, I decided to do it. It was so good to get back into the mode of "French Teacher." And, I especially love teaching people some of the complicated mechanics of the language, which, in the case of French, is telling time and numbers. Normally, in any other language it would be extremely easy to teach those to things, but with my class, it took almost the whole time. I got a really good response from it, and am still answering the "How do you say ________ in French?" question, which is probably my favorite question of all.

One of the biggest highlights of the week was our show facility. It turns out that all of the auditorium scenes for High School Musical were shot in the auditorium of Murray High. Of course everything was lost on me because I haven't seen any of the HSM movies, so when everyone was reeling over the fact that we were performing on the same stage that Zac Efron performed on, I was like, "Hey, cool." My reaction will probably change once I see the first movie, though.

Show day was also awesome, because the staff gave us a break from rehearsal, since we had been working so hard on the show. They set up a whole "Cast B Lounge," where we had a bar that served virgin drinks, awesome massages by the One and Only Mitch McVicker, a table where they served baked goods, a human slot machine, and High School Musical playing on our screen. It's always a good day when our cast has a chance to hang out with each other. Normally, during Up with People, we only truly get to hang out with everyone during meals, so every time we get an opportunity like this, we make the absolute best out of it.

Salt Lake City was a really awesome city that I plan to visit again real soon.

US, Part 2.3: Colorado Springs, CO

In order to get to Colorado Springs from Albuquerque, you have to pass through Denver, and for the cast, it was like visiting home. As we were whizzing along the highway, I saw the Lightrail stations that I would take every morning to go to the Sherman Center. And then I started thinking about the very beginning of the tour, and how far the cast had come since the days of 12-hour rehearsals, and how people who hadn't danced a day in their lives were thrust into intricate dance lines, and people who had never been on stage before being petrified about the first show. Now, 11 weeks, and 13 shows later, all of those once-amateur dancers can do every single dance routine forwards and backwards, and every stage shy person doesn't bat an eye when performing in front of 2,000 people. That is what is incredible about the UwP program: it takes you to the limits, and changes you forever.

Even though our tour schedule says, "Colorado Springs," we spent most of the week on Fort Carson, which is an Army post within the limits of Colorado Springs. It was a little city inisde a big city. Because of the international nature of our program, all of our host families were in Colorado City, and Jochem and I were hosted again for the third time, which was cool because we were so comfortable with each other. As soon as we walked through the door, our host parents talked to us about Xoçai Chocolate, which is a special kind of Belgian Chocolate that a square of only has, according to my Host Dad, "more antioxidants than 12 pounds of tomatoes." And after 5 minutes of being there, Jochem and I knew more than we ever thought possible about the Xoçai business, antioxidants, and how the chocolate had changed not only their lives, but the lives of their friends. I loved this host family, because it was the first, and most definitely last, time I would hear phrases such as: "You have to eat your chocolate before you go to bed," or, "Have as much chocolate as you want." My host family rocked. Their names: Dan and Esther Sallee, he was a chiropracter with his own massage therapy school, and she was a cosmetologist/massage therapist. When Jochem and I were there, he was about to close his school and his chiropractics business, and she was not taking any more clients because they were going in to the chocolate business full-time. Needless to say, I loved everything about this host family, other than the fact that they were Republicans. But hey, nobody's perfect, right?

I digress. In this particular city our contribution to the community was our Stand for Peace Program where we go into the elementary schools in the area and teach the students about diversity and choices they make when they're faced with conflict. It's a really awesome program. Each classroom has 2 to 3 people from at least two different countries, and so they get so much culture on top of the things that we try to touch upon. It was great in this city because my partners in crime were Crystal from Wisconsin, and the Sioux Nation, and Veronika from Sweden. Veronika and Chrystal taught the kids all kinds of Sioux and Swedish games. What was different about this city was that most of the kids had at least one parent in either Iraq or Afghanistan. There were some points in the program where we ask if anyone has questions, and some of the younger kids raised their hands and instead of asking something, they would say, "My Mommy's in Iraq," or "My Daddy's in Afghanistan." It just put the whole war thing in perspective. Since this isn't a political blog I won't go into everything, but I just hope that all of the soldiers from Ft. Carson come home safely.

One of the highlights of the week was that we went bowling at the bowling alley on the post, and it was super fun. For the first string, I decided to let the other people in my group bowl for me, and they ended up bowling a 100, and winning the game for me. The second string, I decided to bowl for myself, and I bowled an 11. I never realized how hard the sport of bowling really is. In my mind, I'm an awesome bowler, but in practice, my aim is all off. I think that if I had gone to that lane where the gutters are blocked off with foam padding, I might have bowled a 300. I'm just saying.

I don't know if it's because a lot of our cast members equate guest speaker time with nap time, or if it because of another reason, but it so happens that we don't have a lot of guest speakers on tour. This week was an exeption, because we had an economist come and speak to us about the economic theory behind globalization, how it works, and what the future of it is. After his speech, he answered some questions on that topic, but most of the questions we had pertained to the US financial crisis. So, it was thanks to him that I understand how everything works, and why it'll still be years before a bank will ever approve me for a credit card. This speaker was special because he happened to be our Cast Manager's 90-year-old grandfather. It was great to see a man of his years with a mind that was still razor-sharp.

The show in this city was really special in that it was dedicated to not only all of the military families on the post, but also to all of the troops that are giving their lives overseas. I was a little nervous about doing my spoken word pieces, especially the seond one, because it actually mentions the war. But my worries were totally unfounded because after the show, Martin, our Cast Manager came up to me and said that I did such a god job that one of the Generals on post wants to use the second poem as part of his training. That felt really awesome when I heard that.

That's what happened in Colorado Springs... stay tuned for (drumroll...) Salt Lake City!

US Part 2.2: Albuquerque, NM

Before actually going there, whenever I heard Albuquerque mentioned, I always thought of it as the place where Bugs Bunny should have taken that left turn. Now, it is so much more than that. I met some wonderful people over there, did some incredible things, and gained yet another family. I also had to carry my trash around with me wherever I went for the entire week. But that's another story.

The host code theme for this week had to do with zoo animals since we were going to be performing at the Albuquerque Zoo. When I got my schedule, I got four surprises: a) that my roommate that week was going to be Abeba from Ethiopia, and 2) that I quickly had to find out what the heck a naked mole rat looked/sounded like, since that was the way Abeba and I were going to find our host family. I think I asked just about everyone in the cast that might have the slightest clue. Most of the cast just pointed and laughed at me, while the rest of them told me about Rufus, the naked mole rat character on some Nickolodeon cartoon that escapes me at the moment. With the vast amount of knowledge that Abeba and I had gathered about the naked mole rat, it was time to try to look for the owners of the house we'd be living in for the next week.

It wasn't too hard to figure out that the people standing around in bathrobes (and were thus "naked") were our host family. This week we had Miryam Miller, a medical student at the University of Arizona, her son Benjamin (8), daughter Maysie (6), stepdaughter Corinne, 18, and an orange cat, named appropriately enough, Orange Cat, which they didn't bring in to the Events Center. Usually I'm not hosted in houses with pets, but I think they made an exception this time because the cat had some thyroid problems, and therefore didn't shed a lot, so I wasn't allergic to him. I knew I was going to love this family when our first meal consisted of lasaagna. The stimulating conversation was definitely a plus, but if you ever want me to be a friend for life, cook me a pan of lasagna. It'll work every time.

I love it when there are kids under 15 in my host family. It adds something really cool to the whole dynamic. For instance, thanks to Benjamin, I learned all about the Eyelash Viper. Yes, they do actually exist, and they are Benjamin's favorite animal. I personally think 'Eyelash Viper' should have been our host code. They really impressed me when they were telling me about a movie they saw where one of the jokes had David Bowie as the punchline. I asked them if they knew who David Bowie was, and right away Maysie mentioned that he was the Goblin King in the Labyrinth. Now that is good parenting. Bravo, Miryam!

Now let's get back to the whole carrying-my-trash-around-with-me story. The theme of that particular week was the environment, and to illustrate how much waste each person of the cast generates, they had us carry our trash with us (minus our bathroom trash, of course.) This made the week really hard for me. At the beginning of it all, I made myself eat everything tat was on my plate, but then as my stomach started rebelling against me, I develloped the "find whoever is hungry, and give them the rest of the food" technique, which ended up working really well. It was a strategy that worked really well for the rest of the cast as well. At the end it was really interesting to see how much trash the cast generated. Unfortunately we couldn't get into a lot of detail because we had run out of time, ut we generated a lot of recyclables, which was awesome.

Regional Learning for Albuquerque was amazing. We drove to the Acoma Reservation, where the Acoma tribe lives. After a tour of the lovely Reservation Gift Shop, we all boarded a bus and went up on the mesa where the Acoma tribe has called home for millennia, give or take a couple hundred years. The English name of our tour guide was Gary, and he was such a dynamic speaker. What struck me was the culture that I experienced while on the mesa. I was definitely no longer in the United States. The Acoma tribe have their own culture, customs, values, ceremonies, and cuisine. When Gary took us to the cemetery, he told us that there were four layers of people burried, dating back to approximately the 1300s, with the latest addition to the cemetery being a couple of weeks prior to our visit. After going thrugh the cemetery, we toured the church which combined Catholicism with the tradional religion of the Acoma. It was actually one of the oldest chuches in the Southwestern United States. He gave us a tour of the whole reservations, and along the tour, there were various merchant booths set up where the natives sold their pottery. Many people in the cast stopped and bought some of it as souvenirs. I was afriad that if I had bought any, it would definitely break in my suitcase, so I decided against it. But I did sample some of their baked goods, and they were wonderful. I had one of their cookies, which is a cross between a dinner rool and a cake. It was deifintely different, but it was delicious.

One of the high points on the tour was being able to do a recording of Shine the Light for the cast. An alumnus who traveled in the '70s had seen a video of him performing a song for the cast, and it made him nostaglic, and he thought it would be awesome to give Cast B the gift of nostalgia as well. He was so passionate about this project that he started tearing up when he was explaining everything to us. His recording studio was state-of-the-art, and there was a whole slew of professional artists that had been there before us, such as Snoop Dogg, Mariah Carey, and Outkast. We did tree takes of the song three, and then he had us record the names of us and those of all of our castmembers, which was our way of personalizing the recording.

For the entire week, we were dreading our show day because we knew that when we got done with our show, we'd only have a couple of hours to sleep, because we were volunteering at a 'trash fiesta,' which took place in a landfill, and was designed to make Albuquerquians more aware of the stuff they were throwing away. Everybody on the cast that I talked to really didn't think it was worth it to wake up at 3 in the morning to go tell people about the wonders of waste reduction. And we all thought it was a bizarre time to be having something like this, which was open to the entire city of Albuquerque. The morning of show day it was revealed to us that the trash fiesta didn't really exist. We were all going to help out with the annual Balloon Fiesta! The Balloon Fiesta is an event where balloonists from all over the world come and do various things, such as a balloon glow, where throughout the evening the fully inflated balloons turn on their gas and the whole balloon lights up. But the event the cast helped out with was the Mass Descent, where 200+ balloons all take to the skies together. There were some of us that helped crew the balloons (which includes inflating the balloons and getting them ready to fly; some of the people who helped crew the balloons actually got to go up with the pilots.) and there were some of us that helped the Make A Wish Foundation's New Mexico chapter seel Balloon Fiesta calendars and programs. I did the latter. It was great helping out an organization that did so much for children with terminal diseases, and it also allowed us ample time to scope out all of the food vendors in the area.

For the actual show day, we performed at the Albuquerque Zoo, where some pretty big acts have played. My host mom said that she had seen the Indigo Girls play there a couple of years ago. The facility definitely had it's pros and it cons. It ws such a nice area to preform because it was outside, but we the stage had a roof, and it was actually in the shape of a hippo's mouth, which ws hella cool. Not only that, but if any one of us had fallen off the stage, we would have fallen into a duck pond that was filled with hundreds of different varieties of water fowl, and a pair of swans. Unfortunately, the stage wasn't really designed for shows with 100 performers, and it was hard for me to get around backstage, with everybody all back there at the same time. But everyone went crazy at the show, and really got into it. My host family liked it, and it even inspired my host sister, Corinne, to apply.

Travel day was probably one of the lowest days of the tour. One of our castmembers' fathers had passed away from a heart attack the night before, and she had to fly back home for a couple of weeks. It was ironic, because hte host family that I was staying with had lost the father from a heart attack in April, and so my Host Mom became a single parent. So, my host mother went over to my castmate and talked with her for a little while, which I thought it was awesome. It was really sobering to realize that our lives do go on back at home, and that things you never thought could happen can take place. We all hugged her and told her that we would support her no matter what. That is what is so great about the Up with People program: when you are finished, you end up with a global family. She originally thought that she'd meet up with the cast in the Philippines, but we found out this week that she'll be coming back to the cast on Tuesday in Sioux Falls!

Next stop: Colorado Springs, CO!

US Part 2.1: Sahuarita/Tucson, AZ

Well, we made it through the Mexican leg of our journey, and it was time to start all over again in the United States, which, for me, was an adjustment. It was a weird adjustment. I went from constantly hearing Spanish being spoken around me, eating tortillas filled with whatever meat was for lunch, and taking cold showers to English, wheat bread, and warm showers. It was pretty sweet. It was also weird seeing speed limit signs in miles per hour again. Our destination was Sahuarita, Arizona, which is just about an hour outside of Tucson, which is where the original Up with People headquarters were before they moved to Denver, Colorado in 1993. This is a bit of random trivia that will become important later in the post.

Anyway, this city was extra special because I was hosted with my two best friends on the tour, Jochem, my roommate in Denver, and his now-girlfriend, Angela, and her parents Lucia and Lorenzo Montebello. It was really cool to see where one of our castmembers came from, and where she grew up. Almost immediately upon arrival, Lucia pulled out a whole bunch of Angela's school photos, and some of her artwork from school. It was really cool to see how Angela grew up, because we really don't get to see those kinds of things of our castmates while on tour. While we were in Mexico, Angela had asked me what I had wanted when we got to our house, and of course, with me being me, I said, "macaroni and cheese." And so, when we got to the Montebello residence, Lucia's three-cheese macaroni and cheese was waiting for us on the stove. I could tell this was going to be a really, really, really good week.

During the day, we did some really cool Community Impact work for the city of Sahuarita. During the first day of CI, we went to a place called "Casa de Esperanza," where they have a multi-generational program for both pre-school aged children, and elderly people. It was really cool to see how these two worlds melded together. All of the pre-schoolers called the elderly people either, "Grandma," or, "Grandpa," and so all of the older folks that were there had nametags that said, "Grandma Barbara," or, "Grandpa Bert."

Our task for that particular day was to paint a water feature that the children used on their playground. First, we had to sand everything down so that the new coats of paint would adhere to the wood. This gave Sarah and Katrin of Germany the perfect opportunity to show us their power tool prowess. Not only that, but we all got safety glasses that made us all look really super cool.

After we all got done sanding everything, it was time for lunch, after which we all went into the pre-school part of the building and introduced ourselves to the kids. I loved the looks on all the kids faces when we said who we were in our native languages, and pointed to where we were from on the globe. Then we all sang Frère Jacques in each of our languages. Judging by how the kids just stared at us, I'm thinking that this visit will stick with them for a long time to come.

When we were all finished, the Casa de Esperanza pre-school water feature was once again a brilliant red, white, and yellow.

The morning of the water feature CI, one of our Edcation Coordinators, Aoife (pronounced: EE-fuh; I think Gaelic is much worse to try to read than English), had come up to me to say that they had mantioned me to one of the people who would be working with us the next day at Madera Canyon, one of our CI sites in the Arizona mountains. It just so happened that he's been working on getting that particular site more ADA compliant, and requested that I speak to him. Aoife said that it was totally my decision, and that I didn't have to go down there if I didn't want to. I didn't really have to think much about it. To get a chance to help other disabled people enjoy the beauty of the canyon, and to give my feedback from the point of view of a disabled person was a great honor.

When I got there, I met Phil English, an octogenarian volunteer for the "Friends of Madera Canyon," which is a group of volunteers that work closely with the Forest Service of Arizona in order to do the upkeep for Madera Canyon. While the other people were hefting big logs out from under a bridge, Phil was taking me on a tour of the Canyon and the surrounding area, telling me everything possible about its history, its wildlife, and its future. When he wasn't talking about the Canyon, he was telling stories about how he grew up across the street from Dick and Jerry Van Dyke, and told me that it was Dick that got him his first job on the radio. Being the pop culture freak that I am, it was really super cool to hear those stories. After I got a tour of the entire canyon, he showed the trails that needed work. He pointed out where the trails were leading to, and then he told me how he planned on making everything accessible. He asked me what my opinion was, and I said that his ideas were really good ones. It was so great to see someone who was so devoted to one thing. This place is his world, and he obviously wants to share it with everybody.

Now back to the part of the post where I said that Tucson, Arizona, was the UwP headquarters for much of its history. Since we were near the old headquarters site, we got to meet with J. Blanton Belk, the founder of Up with People. This man has led the most incredible life of anybody that I have ever met. He was personal friends with the likes of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, and Jesse Owens, two of the most influential African Americans in history. He has also had dinner with kings and queens, and after all of this, he still remains securely grounded, and extremely down to Earth. I had the fortune of eating dinner with him that day, before the show, and he talked about having dinner with Martin Luther King Jr. the night after he delivered the immortal "I Have a Dream" speech. He also talked about how the UwP song, "What Color is God's Skin" influenced that very speech. That will probably go down in history as one of my most interesting dinner conversations that I will ever get to experience.

Mr. Belk was not the only VIP that was going to see the show. The Caldwell Brothers and Herb Allen, the very people who wrote the Up with People song were going to see the show, and perform a couple of songs at the end of our show. Then there were all of the original creative team that made UwP what it was in the '70s, '80s, and '90s. But to top it all off, Pieter von Vallenhoven, the Dutch Queen's brother-in-law, was there watching the show. It was so cool to be around my Dutch friends as they met a member of their Royal Family. It turns out that not only is Professor von Vallenhoven a member of the Board of Directors for Up with People, but when one of the casts traveled to the Netherlands about 10 years ago, he hosted a couple of the students. After my dinner with Mr. Belk, Jochem came over to me and asked me if I wanted to meet the Prince. And the only conceivable answer to that question is, "Duh!" So, Jochem introduced me to him, and he asked me where I was from. I said, "Maine, in the United States," and the Prince nodded knowingly. Then he asked me if I was looking out for Jochem. I said that we were like brothers, and that we were looking out for each other, and that made him smile. We joked around for a little while, and then it was time to get ready for this VIP performance and try to put out of my mind everyone who would be seeing the show, which was hard to do.

The show was probably one of the most memorable shows to date. The tension was palpable. I always love it when we go into cities where there are large pockets of alumni, because the whole cast could go up there, sing every note of the show wrong, light the stage on fire, and we'd still get a thunderous standing ovation. Anyway, the show was one of the best shows we had ever put up, and we were rewarded by hearing the Caldwell Brothers and Herb Allen do their stuff on stage. Part of their stuff on stage included Mr. Allen masterfully playing the xylophone. I had never heard anything like it. But what was great to hear afterwards was that the original creative team loved the show so much that they said that they were no longer worried that UwP would make a strong comeback onto the world scene. Knowing that my cast, my family, was a part of that, makes me proud beyond words.

After the show, and striking the set, it was time to go back to the Montebello's house to take it easy for a couple of days. It was so nice to be able to sleep for twelve hours. That's one of the things I've sorely missed while being on this tour. I think I may sleep the entire month of January away when I get back. My really cool week ended when Lucia, a Reiki Master, did a session on me. The session was quicker than expected because she said that when she did the scan, she found that my chakras were perfectly in line. "Not only are you well-adjusted, but you don't see yourself as a victim at all," she said. The only real Reiki thing she did was to wake up my root chakra, which was apparently really asleep. Right afterwards, I went to sleep, so that I could wake up really early in the morning and travel to Albuquerque, to do some more incredible things, and meet some more incredible people.

See you guys on da flip side, yo!

Mexico, Week 5: Hermosillo, Sonora

The last city on our Mexican tour started out with a boom. Literally. Actually, Hermosillo started out with a 12-hour bus ride that included four checkpoints where men with machine guns checked our buses for fruit and drugs. It wasn't a big deal for me, because I was allowed to stay on the bus, which lead to very interesting conversations:

Machine-Gun-Wielding Mexican Officer {all serious and menacing}: ¿De dónde es? [Translation: Where are you from?]

Me {trying to act calm}: Los Estados Unidos. [Translation: The United States.]

M-G-W MO {still serious and menacing}: ¿Cómo se llama? [Translation: What's your name?]
Me: Stewart. [Translation: Stewart.]
M-G-W MO {all smiles}: ¡O... como el ratón Stuart Little! [Translation: Oh... like the mouse, Stuart Little!]
Me {breathing a sigh of relief}: Exactamente. [Translation: Exactly.]

Never in a million years did I think that E.B. White would help me break the ice with a guy that could blow my head clean off my body just for having some mango in my backpack. Mexicans take their fruits and vegetables very seriously, it turns out.

Anyway, what made this city so special was that our arrival day, September 15, was Mexican Independence Day, which meant that the whole city of Hermosillo lined the streets and partied hard. It also meant that we had to make our way thorugh the dense crowd of partying Mexicans just to get to our headquarters. That was a bit challenging, but we eventually made it. After we took care of business, we had to walk to the Palacio in Hermosillo, where the Governor of the Mexican state of Sonora lives, and go to a reception there with a whole bunch of official-looking people who we had no idea who they were. After the reception, and shaking hands with the Governor and His Lovely Wife, we stood outside the Palacio, waiting for him to ring the bell, and shout things in Spanish (in an Eva-Perón-Don't-Cry-for-Me-Argentina-type style) after which the whole town cried, "¡Viva!" Then, when all the ringing, shouting, and "¡Viva!"-ing had taken place, the fireworks display began. This fireworks display put all of my previous fireworks experiences to shame: The whole thing lasted a solid 45 minutes, and the fireworks were right over our heads, and then the whole thing was punctuated by mass quantities of green, white, and red confetti shot out of confetti canons.

The whole thing went until 12:30, and by that time everybody in the cast was exhausted, and wanted to go home. But in order to do that, we had to meet our host families. This time around, our theme was Disney characters. And to make it more challenging, all of our host codes were in Spanish, which made it really hard for Seung Beom (my roommate) and me to find our host family. Our host code was Campanita, which I had no clue who that was. If I had known that 'campa' was the Spanish word for 'bell,' I probably would have figured it out, but alas, I was left clueless.

The first person I met was my host mom, who was holding a helium-filled Tinkerbell balloon. Meeting your host family on a travel day is the most interesting experiences you can have when you're on tour with Up with People. Imagine meeting someone for the first time knowing that you are going to live with them, and eat what they eat, and sleep in a bed that they have prepared for you. This is why I get nervous on Mondays. The unknown can be a little disconcerting sometimes. But once you meet with them, and you put your stuff in the trunk of their car and get to know them on the way home, a sense of ease washes over you, and you're just so excited about answering whatever question they might have. I also met Aarón, my host brother, and his fiancée, Joana (pronounced: yo-AH-nuh). As soon as I was in my Hermosillo home and it was so easy talking to them, I knew it would be hard saying, "See you later!" at the end of the week, which, by the way, is the second reason why Mondays are always the hardest days of the tour.

I don't have a lot of stuff to write about this city, because Tuesday was the day that Montezuma decided to get his revenge on me. I guess that's what happens when you don't drink water on the bus, and then you sweat profusely for 5 hours afterwards. So, I had to stay home and miss the last day that the cast hung out at the beach in San Carlos. I heard it was amazing. [Sigh] But my day off afforded me the pleasure of talking with my host family and realizing just how much my Spanish had improved over the past 5 weeks. I went from not being able to understand my La Paz Host Dad Hector to having a really good conversation with my Hermosillo host family about the Up with People program. All in Spanish. It helped that Aarón spoke really good English and could translate whatever I didn't understand.

I also loved my living situation in Hermosillo because it was the second time that I was hosted with Seung Beom from South Korea. But it was even cooler because he was my only roommate and therefore I could learn a whole lot more about Korea. For instance, I learned that when a child is born in Korea, they automatically are one year old. In Korea, they believe that any living being should have an age, and so it is impossible to be under a year old over there. Another weird thing about Korean age is that everybody automatically is a year older on January 1st. So, a Korean baby born on December 31 is automatically two, two days into its life. It's interesting because when anybody asks Seung Beom how old he is, he says that he's 23 in Korea, and 21 everywhere else.

Okay, I could talk about my living situation over there for days, but I'll move on. One of the things we did in Hermosillo was attend a conference about issues surround sex and drunk driving in Mexico. The whole day started when we got up on stage and started singing Viva la Gente, Then we saw a drama about different issues that the Mexican people have to face in regards to sex. It's pretty much like the United States. Then, we had a selection of Viva la Gente people come up and speak about what their attitudes are about sex in their country. The most interesting part about the discussion was when Cecile from Denmark said that there are no real taboos surrounding sex, and that everybody over there was really open about it, which is the reason why Denmark has one of the lowest rates of STD transmission in the world. Nobody is ashamed to talk about it, because it's no big deal over there, so people are therefore more aware and able to take care of themselves more. This caused a stir in the audience because it is really not like that in Mexico. Sex is still a really hard topic for a lot of people over there, and they have a lot of work to do in order for people to be more open about it.

Towards the end of the week, our host family invited us to a couple of family get-togethers which was really cool, because both Seung Beom and I got to meet the rest of our host family. They were the nicest people, and they treated Seung Beom and I just like we were a part of their family. We sang songs, and we talked to them about where we were from, and told them about our tour of Mexico and what we thought about different things.

We also discussed the different things that had happened during the week in Hermosillo, like when Seung Beom wanted to say, "Buenas noches" to Joana, and it came out "Buenas nahcas" instead. Apparently in Spanish saying, "buenas nachas" to someone is the equivalent of saying "You're bootylicious" to them. I think we'll all be laughing about that in the years to come.

On travel day, we had to take our bus to the Mexican border, unlaod everything, walk across the American border and load onto American buses in Nogales, Arizona. It was really eay for the Americans, since all we had to do was get our bags x-rayed, and show the border guard our passports. It took the non-Americans much longer to cross, and some people's bags had to be searched. It was kind of a bittersweet moment of the tour because the Mexican portion of it was over, and it was back to normal as far as being in the US where everybody spoke English again. Looking back on everything, it's really hard to believe that I actually lived in Mexico for 5 weeks and became somewhat of an expert on the culture, attitudes and traditions of the Mexican people. I know that there are many of my host families that I want to see again, and will stay in contact with for the rest of my life.

So thank you, Mexico, for opening my eyes to so many things, and for the churros that I got to enjoy week after week.

Next stop: the good ol' U. S. and A!

Stay tuned!