Bastante Guisantes (so many peas! Yum!)

I kind of feel like I've been living the charmed life lately here on the Mediterranean. Southern Spain is really, really beautiful--I love the warm climate. I've been biking to closeby whitewashed pueblos and to Nerja a few times, picking avocados, strawberries, lemons (my new favorite smell--fresh lemons off the tree!), nisporos (never seen them in the US), and green beans, weeding/thinning out rows of carrots, wearing a genuine sombrero!, and speaking a lot of Spanish to the really nice family here (Laura, Jose Luis and their 4-year-old Abril and 8-month-old Dario). I have my own little "camper" down the hill from their stucco, tile-roofed house. I don't mind the camper at all--but running water, electricity, and wi-fi would make it better. :) I'm seriously thinking of getting myself a little camper first thing when I get home.

I've had lots of time on my hands to read ("Mountains Beyond Mountains" = AMAZING book--Thanks, Tricia and Doug!) and listen to some fun music and podcasts (thanks, Joel, for your splendid iTunes library!). Traveling alone is kind of... not for everyone. I've had a lot of time to think about the things and people who have made me who I am--I feel like I'm getting to know myself better, which is funny: you'd think I'd know myself really well after 26 years of living with myself. :) It would be nice to have a travel buddy. But this weekend I'm visiting Carla, a Bolivian friend I went to church with in Madrid and who now lives in Malaga. We're hopefully going to check out Ronda together, a whitewashed hill town Rick Steves (!!heart!!) is all over.

Since reading "Mountains Beyond Mountains," I've fallen in love with Haiti a little. The book's about Dr. Paul Farmer, a SAINT who has a heart to give quality medical care to the poorest people in the world--he has treated thousands of people with TB and AIDS--seriously saved thousands of lives. He co-founded a nonprofit called Partners in Health that I'd love to work with someday, if I ever make it through 7-8 years of med school + residency. :) The book talks a lot about Haiti's deplorable agricultural problems (apparently the country's topsoil is washing away due to lack of trees holding it in place--seems like an easy enough problem to fix, no? bamboo? more trees?). From conversations with my wise, commonsensical, organic farming bff Hannah, I've been persuaded that (sustainable) agriculture is a good place to start if you want to see a healthy, prosperous, developing community. Sounds reasonable. Thinking about that lately.

Some of my favorite/most thought-provoking quotes from the book: "What I don't like about Marxist literature is what I don't like about academic pursuits--and isn't that what Marxism is, now? In general, the arrogance, the petty infighting, the dishonesty, the desire for self-promotion, the orthodoxy. I can't stand the orthodoxy, and I'll be that's one reason that science did not flourish in the former Soviet Union." -PF

"I was taken with the idea that in an ostensibly godless world that worshiped money and power or, more seductively, a sense of personal efficacy and advancement, like at Duke and Harvard, there was still a place to look for God, and that was in the suffering of the poor. You want to talk crucifixion? I'll show you crucifixion, you bastards." -PF

"'Medical Education does not exist to provide students with a way of making a living, but to ensure the health of the community.' 'The physicians are the natural attorneys of the poor, and the social problems should largely be solved by them.'" -Rudolf Virchow, one of Farmer's medical heroes

"As we entered the city proper (Paris), that great dove-colored epicurean city, he murmered something about how much could be done in Haiti if only he could get his hands on the money that the first world spent on pet grooming." -T. Kidder

Makes me feel a BIT guilty for hanging out in paradise right now (ok--hopefully I'll use these skills to help people someday, yeah?). BTW, Farmer thinks guilt is a valuable sentiment--it's a motivator for the rich to help the poor. Agree?