You're living where?!!! With who?!!! Doing what?!!!

Dear Friends and Family,

There has been some concern brought to my attention regarding the last post. I realize that I should have been a bit clearer about what happened last weekend. Our current house mates consist of an Argentinean guy (Lucas) and another housemate (a French woman who recently finished volunteer work with a local NGO). Lucas is the father of a little boy, who spends time at the house regularly. Lucas is supporting his son through entertaining children at schools and birthday parties as a clown. These are the things that we were aware of upon moving into the house. Until last weekend, we were aware of only minimal drug use generally due to visitors to the house. The party that happened was a onetime deal (at least while we are here). For the next week the house residence will be Cassie, myself, Lucas, and the French women. After that we will be leaving the area. From my observations over the course of the last three weeks neither Lucas nor the French Women keep drugs in the house, and there will not be any more parties like last weekend.

We feel like the party last weekend was a bit uncomfortable and certainly not our preferred living situation.

I hope this puts some concerns to rest. Please know that what I described in the last post is not a situation that we prefer or that we are pursuing.

Thanks for your concern,

Brent and Cassie

The Party Scene

Turns out our choice of house mates is exposing us to a different scene in Sucre. Often times we completely miss each other, we are getting up to start our day and they are just going to bed, to sleep into the late afternoon. One guy offered me a pretty good deal for a new business opportunity. Turns out I can buy 10 grams of pure cocaine here for about $150 USD, I understand that any where in the US 1 gram goes for more then $100 USD.

I knew it was going to be a long night when I was shopping at the market and I received a flyer from someone that I didn’t recognize inviting me to a party that was taking place at my house. Our housemates hosted a party with a scheduled line up of performers, including clowns, puppets, juggling and fire dancing. The party got started around 12:00am. Once we were ready to go to bed around 3:30am we had to kick a few folks out of our room, and move the cocaine paraphernalia off of our bed. I got up around 10:00am to start the day and there was still about a dozen people finishing off the last of the gallon jug of vodka trying to counter act the stimulating effect of snorting cocaine all night so that they could eventually fall asleep.

The picture of the little girl has nothing to do with the party scene, it was just a picture Cassie took at the market.

Don’t worry Moms we will be leaving this place very soon, and we plan to be a bit more intentional about the next place we decide to stay, and I was joking about considering the new business opportunity.

Settling in

We found a place to call home for a bit. The place consists of three bedrooms that open to an uncovered patio area it also has a kitchen and bathroom. We have been doing our shopping at the local market a few blocks away, which means we are eating all Bolivian grown foods. Our “house mates” consist of a girl from France and an Argentinean guy his picture is below. We also began language school, studying for four hours each morning of the week. We plan to hang out here for at least a month. Then who knows what? For now, between 4 hours a day of Spanish lessons, plus the the three online courses that I am taking through PSU, my time is pretty full. Cassie is going to start volunteering at a local orphanage.


Cassie doing some laundry, I did my own.

This is the street that our place is on

Our new house mate, It's no joke...He is a clown

Experiencing Coca for the first time

The other day Cassie and I went for a stroll, we wanted to get to a good view point, so we picked out a nearby hill to climb to the top of. Once we got to the base of it, we found stairs that were formed from the rocks around. We took the stairs all the way to the top where there was a large statue of Jesus as seen above. There an indigenous man invited me over to his circle where there were 6 other indigenous men and women, all around a small cook stove that had burning coals on it. The man offered me coca leaves which I chewed for the first time. Then he pulled a huge hamster out of a card board box, and a women held a cup of water up to him. The man put the head of the hamster into the cup under the water. He held it there until the hamster stopped squirming, and lay motionless. Next the man put different kinds of spices on the burning coals and wafted the smoke onto each of the people in the circle. Then he offered me something to drink, it was some pretty strong alcohol, I partook and thankfully was able to hold it down, they all had a good laugh at my reaction to the drink (I later found out it was rubbing alcohol (95%) mixed with Fanta). Next the man accompanied by one other man took the small stove with the coals and the dead hamster to the other side of the Jesus statue, and about 15 minutes later returned with only an empty stove. I wished them a good afternoon and headed back down the hill, between the coca leaves and the shot of rubbing alcohol I had a very enjoyable walk home.

We always enjoy comments below,

Be Well,
Brent and Cassie

Still in Transit

We were hoping to write our first post from a place that we were “settling” into. However it is taking awhile for us to get to that place here is our trip so far:

September 15, 1:30am Depart San Francisco, USA
5hr layover in San Salvador, El Salvador
9:00pm arrive in Lima, Peru
Stay the first night in the airport, and second night in a hostel
September 17, 9:00pm depart for 15hr bus ride to Ariquipa, Peru
September 18, 2:30pm depart for 8hr bus ride to Puno, Peru
Stay the night in a hostel
September 19, 7:30am depart for 7hr bus ride and border crossing to La Paz, Bolivia
Stay the next two nights with couch surfer connection in La Paz
(planning)
September 21, 5:30pm depart for a 13hr bus ride to Sucre, Bolivia

Here in La Paz, a city of over 1,000,000 pop. We are sitting at nearly 11,000 ft. above sea level, that’s just under the elevation of the summit of Mount Hood. Aside from the shortness of breath and occasional light headedness we are handling quite well.

We got to spend a couple of days in Lima with Amanda, its always good to have Goodness Collective connections.

We’ll post again soon from Sucre

Brent and Cassie

The crew has returned from fishing in remote and rugged Alaska! We had a good season and, as might be expected, enjoyed some classic moments together. The weather was wicked and wonderful! We experienced significant gales and swells.


These are a few of the cabins on our beach. Appliances are powered by either generator, propane or solar. The water comes from a spring on the bluff behind the cabins.










This is our cabin a hundred feet behind the the grey cabin shown above.



















Hanging a new net inside our cabin.
















An evening on the beach.


















Rugged homies chillin' in a slew off the bay.























Midnight Sunset






















Capt. Brent bringing us home after a day on the water.



















Myself (left) and Ian (right) are attempting to pull the net over the bow.



















We were successful after some strategical repositioning.





















Taking a break in the bow.














It was great, difficult and beautiful! For most of the season Brent, Ian and I worked together. Towards the end the captains shifted strategies and the workforce of six split into 3 crews. Brent and I worked together and pulled some profitable and grueling shifts including a 30 hour hour shift.... 4 hours of sleep and then 20 hours and so on. We were commissioned to work a site across the bay and had no one to switch out with.

We enjoyed occasional downtime on the boat, and were forced to become progressively more creative with our entertainment. During slow days we had tea time, and we would set times for consumption of our sandwiches. In this way we were able to experience slight anticipation.
Then of course there was actual fishing. During one 30 hour period we caught over 10,000 pounds of fish. Thats a lot of fish and work!

Me, braving the elements.















It was a glorious month! Try it sometime.












As I predicted, the boat engine stalled as the propeller ground through the body of the dead Baluga. Filming was suspended in order to move away from the horrible stench of the carcass in a timely manner.

He's home!

It was dusk when he walked up the front steps. I was on the porch recliner and still waking up when he asked (with his helmet on) " Is this The Goodness Collective?" I told him it was, and suspected that a housemate had invited a couch surfer. "Who are you? " I asked. He removed his helmet with a flourish, revealing his signature, beautiful blonde dreads.

Brent is home!!! He rode from Vegas on a 750 Honda Nighthawk steed.

I was begining to get a bit worried after being in Nepal for a week with out having seen a clear view of the mountains. However my fears were laid to rest.

I'm not gonna lie the last two post brought tears to my eyes (especialy the potty thoughts comment). You guys can't be sending anymore posts like that, otherwise I might be home sooner then expected. Thank you Steve for the amazing picture you brought to my heart.

So I figure there aren't to many places back home where I can get a stright razor shave for 15 cents so I thought I'd give it a shot here. Not to worry I am still hairy as ever I just got a bit of a trim job and neck shave.

I love you all and I am thinking about the snuggle puddle that you might be in right now at the GC wishing I was there.

Brent